


The Chems Fix Nothing, Except for Everything

by thedi_WRECK_tor



Category: Assassin's Creed, Fallout 4
Genre: Blood, Canon Trans Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Emotional Baggage, Ethan Frye's A+ Parenting, Everyone Needs A Hug, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Jacob suffers a lot, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Tags May Change, bad trip, slow burn wye
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:22:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5692678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedi_WRECK_tor/pseuds/thedi_WRECK_tor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ON HIATUS --- DOING A RE-WRITE <br/>I became dissatisfied with how the story was going. I forgot to add ideas that I wanted to add, and thought of new ideas after getting too far into the story. I don't want to abandon this fic because I love it and I love this pairing, so I'm re-writing and going to write at least the majority of it before I begin posting again. I think when I do the story will be even better, and I hope you'll agree. I'm not going to take down what I have thus far, but once I start doing the re-write I am going to re-post as a new work. So to everyone who has been waiting this long, first of all thank you, it means a lot, particularly the few of you who have sent me messages/reviews while you've been waiting, and I am so sorry for leaving you hanging like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Every time I draw a clean breath, I’m like a fish out of water.

**Author's Note:**

> AS ALWAYS, THIS IS ALSO POSTED ON TUMBLR
> 
> If you follow me on Tumblr, or follow #tcfne4e you can follow the story there as well. I'll be posting character designs, etc.
> 
> This fic would not be possible without the incredible RebornFromSeas. They are amazing for enduring my bs on this and have been instrumental in getting this from thought process to actual words.
> 
> This was supposed to be a oneshot. Then I realized I was at twenty-one pages and not even halfway through, so it became clear this would have to be cut up into smaller chunks. Even then, this first chapter is more than thirteen pages long.
> 
> Anyway, I tried to put the plot of Syndicate into the world of Fallout 4. There’s a lot of crossover and references. Knowledge of both games would help with understanding but it’s not really required.
> 
> Tags are subject to change and I will try to update quickly.
> 
> Addendum: I feel like it should be noted that I have really strong feelings about Ethan, and believe he was a terrible father, but that's cranked up so high in this fic I think I broke the dial. Basically, Ethan Frye is a monster in this story.

The first time he lays eyes on the strange little man, he thinks he might understand what the narrators of those cheesy pre-war trash novels he likes to read when Evie isn’t looking are talking about when they say someone took the protagonist’s breath away.

He doesn’t exactly stop breathing but watching the stranger saunter into the room as if he’s belonged there all along is like taking a hit of Jet. His chest clenches, he inhales a little deeper than strictly necessary, and he swallows around the slight catch in his throat.

The stranger is small and slight and confident and so very… clean. He looks out of place in the harshness of the Wasteland and Jacob wonders if maybe the man decided to take a trip out of Diamond city and got lost. He sure looks like Upper Stands material—even his god damn suit jacket is clean, and the shiny little baubles on his cuffs sparkle as if they aren’t living in an irradiated hell hole where clean water and a roof over your head are considered luxuries.

Jacob wants to keep looking, to admire the man, to ask him his name and maybe ask him out for a drink. Instead he turns to where his sister is helping the Synth pour over a map of the ‘Wealth, and points dramatically at the stranger where he is conversing with the old Miss Nanny they liberated along with this base. “Who is that?”

The Synth, a handsome specimen with eyes far kinder than Jacob thinks any robot ought to have, is called Henry Green among his Railroad comrades. He seems to know about everyone and everything in the Commonwealth and he doesn’t like the way Evie and he eye each other. Not because he’s a Synth (hell, up North the Wastes are littered with the escaped Synths and Jacob’s bumped along with his fair share) but because… well he doesn’t quite know why. He only knows every time he sees the two cozying up to each other he’s gripped with an irrational sense of loneliness and alienation and he _really doesn’t want to dwell on this right now he wants to know who the stranger is_.

Henry or as Jacob has taken to calling him, Greenie, glances up. Unlike other Gen 3’s his irises still have that tell-tale glow and the sclera are inky black, and Jacob watches with some fascination as they spin and contract once they’re focused on the stranger, obviously scanning him and processing the information. To the twins’ shock, the Synth shrugs as the stranger concludes his conversation with Miss MacBean (as the odd little bot with the funny accent likes to be called) and saunters over to them.

“You mean you don’t know?” Jacob asks, incredulous and unconsciously walking backwards towards his sister as he faces the small man.

The man eyes them for a moment, lips stretched wide in a smile that’s far too enticing, that makes Jacob want to learn exactly what makes the man smile so he can see more of it, and then gestures grandly with his arms spread to the small underground room they’re in. “You managed to take the listening post. I must I’m impressed.” He talks with a slight accent, one that Jacob can’t place, and moves his arms and hands as he speaks, bouncing from foot to foot. “It’s a highly coveted spot; I hope you can manage…?” The twins and Henry all tense, hands inching towards various weaponry but the stranger spread his hands in apology. “Sorry, sorry. Forgot my manners, and that not everyone is a fan of my jokes. I was merely expressing admiration. I have my own base of operations somewhat to the west of here.” He smiles a disarming sort of smile at them and looks to Green, who appears to be the most docile of the trio. And even though he cocks his head and seems to hesitate at the sight of the glowing eyes, he steps forward, hands in plain view, and extends one towards the Synth. “Name’s Ned.”

Henry smiles gently at the man and takes his hand, giving it a short, friendly shake. “How do you do?” He asks his voice warm and as kind as his glowing eyes. This 'Ned’ character seems to brighten and pumps their clasped hands once with enthusiasm before dropping his grasp and turning towards the twins.

“I won’t take up any more of your time. I understand you’re new to the Wealth, and interested in Starrick.”

Evie and Jacob exchange quick glances before staring suspiciously at the little man. “How did you-?” Evie begins to ask.

But Ned waves his hand and approaches her, using two fingers to flick a card out of his breast pocket and hold it out to her with a flourish. “You wanna learn a thing or two about caravans, you can find me at these coordinates.” And with that and a jaunty little wave over his shoulder, he’s gone.

Jacob, stunned, reaches to grab the card from his sister but she snatches it away childishly and turns back to her maps with Green. “Now, to work.”

 

* * *

 

He and Evie are near clones, he thinks, even for twins. Less so now in their second decade, but only because of small differences. He’s broken his nose many times and now it’s swollen all thick and knobby in the middle where hers is slim and straight. He has scars in his brow and across his cheek, to name but the visible ones, and her face is marred only by the explosion of freckles that Jacob has managed to (mostly) avoid. Except for the low timber of his voice and the lilting cadence of hers, he thinks they even sound rather alike. Well, enough alike that he can imitate her perfectly to annoy the snot out of her. Their faces are similar in shape and angle and their eyes are their father’s while their mouths and ears belong to their mother. Even their build is similar: tall, sturdy, with the bulk of muscle not found on the Wastes’ farmers. They each wield a gauntlet-mounted shiv, a weapon the likes of which no one south of Maine has seen before and the history of which is a closely-guarded secret they share. They look like mercenary stock but, well.

Why wouldn’t they?

That’s where their similarities end, though. Their personalities are like oil and water but they’ve managed to bump along well enough for nearly twenty one years. Evie’s meticulous planning, shrewd cunning, and unmatched skill complement Jacob’s brutality, his fierceness, and his ability to improvise and make things up on the go. Evie works well with long range rifles and lasers, while Jacob favors getting in his opponent’s face and smashing it to a bloody pulp. Jacob irritates her with the way he rushes headlong into conflict, foiling her plans himself and generally making a mess of things with his impulsive behavior. Evie drives him half insane with her planning every minute detail and constant nagging for him to be better, to do better, always quoting father at him like father’s words is the fucking gospel.

He loves his sister, even though they butt heads more often than a pair of rampaging alpha Deathclaws. There’s no one he’d rather have watch his back out on the road, and he’d die in an instant for her, gladly. They’ve had only one another for so long, even when they had their father. They know every dark secret the other carries and have tended to every scar the other has suffered. They’ve stitched one another up in a physical and emotional sense more than he cares to try and count. The Waste has a way of chewing up and spitting people back out, and most would succumb to those wounds.

With Evie at his side, though, he almost thinks himself invincible.

 

* * *

 

The second time he meets the strange little man, he walks into the meeting curious and uncharacteristically reserved.

He hasn’t stopped thinking about the man for the last two weeks. They’d meant to meet with him sooner but the Railroad and the Minutemen always seemed to need something or other from the twins, no thought spared for if they had their own issues to see to.

Jacob will never admit to having spent more than one night playing with the card stashed safely in his pocket, wondering about the mysterious stranger and his bright smile. He wonders where Ned came from, if he’s from a tribe or the city. Can’t be from a farm, he’s too clean, too polished. Even for a city boy he has a shine to him like the machinery he and Evie will sometimes scavenge during lean times from the abandoned vaults. And, in the twilight between being awake and falling asleep, Jacob thinks that he’s never wanted to take apart a bit of salvage as much as he wants to take apart Ned.

The memory of that late-night bit of rambling makes Jacob cough to clear his throat, and he’s grateful for the generous smear of filth across his face in case he really is blushing like he thinks he might be. Ned turns at the sound and flashes that brilliant smile at them again, making Jacob’s gut churn in a way that makes him feel like he’s accomplished something. To combat that, he crosses his arms over his chest and levels his gaze on one of Ned’s burly guards, seizing the man up as Ned steps away from the crew he is overseeing at the moment to step closer to the twins. “I knew you’d come! My warmest welcome!” The words make Jacob’s belly flutter, a feeling he doesn’t know whether or not he likes. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it though because Ned is still talking. Jacob finds his gaze sliding away from the body guard and focusing on Ned’s hands, the way they move with every word, and the way Ned’s body seems to move with them. He doesn’t seem able to stand still, and he rocks on his feet a little as he goes on. “It’s our business to keep the 'Wealth in balance, monitoring caravans and barges. Our biggest problem: the Blighters.”

And there it is. Evie and Jacob both smile and turn to each other at the same time, an understanding look passing between them. They’d had no idea what Ned really wanted, since even Greenie knew nothing about him, but now his intentions were clear.

He wanted in on their business interests in order to secure his own. Starrick’s Blighters stood in the way of that. As Jacob chuckled and uncrossed his arms, playing with the gauntlet-mounted shiv on his left arm, Ned continued. “If you can rid us of them, I’d be ever so grateful.” That damn smile. Jacob toys idly with the edge of his blade, his thoughts a mess.

Evie snaps him out of them by bumping her elbow to his. “It would make the Commonwealth safer.”

And then Ned, damn him, has to flash that smile and say “You find anything with a shine to it—it’s yours.”

That’s when Jacob knows he’s sunk, but he doesn’t really mind and this time it’s more like a hit of Psycho, a chem he tends to avoid. He feels the rush, he feels confident and sure and like he’s invulnerable as he saunters forward a few steps, ignoring the way the guard shifts and holds his weapon a little higher. Ned follows him with brilliant eyes that are like the sun rising over the harshest part of the Waste, something beautiful and precious and Jacob never wants to look away. He wants to step right into the small man’s space, wants to lean down and see if he smells as clean as he looks, and maybe kiss the smile that’s taken on a wary edge. The shine dims, and now it’s more like the sun setting and he feels a hot flush ride up his chest, his neck, and settles around his cheeks and ears. The sun setting is a time of uncertainty and fear shared throughout post-apocalyptica, just like the sun rising is a sign of hope. He stops in his tracks, well away from the trader and flashes what he hopes is a cocky smile (Evie later teases that it looked a little manic, and asks him if he’s been hitting the Daytripper without her knowing). His voice is higher than he wants when he finally speaks, and the words sound smoother in his head than they do when they come out of his mouth. “I do love a bit of shine.”

 

* * *

 

In twenty years, the Frye twins have seen every shade of post-war America. They’ve seen the light and the dark; they’ve been above and below ground. They’ve lived in every manner of shelter and met every kind of beast. The first six years of their lives, though, they lived in a small vault under a pre-war mall, one of the few vaults not to be owned by the nefarious Vault-Tec, and therefore not subjected to its twisted experiments. The vault had been abandoned nearly a century before their tribe had moved in and made it their own. The Frye twins were born to a vault inhabitant and the outsider she’d fallen in love with, but when Cecily died in childbirth, the outsider abandoned his children and disappeared into the Wastes. The tribe believed him dead, until six years later he showed up with a group of intimidating strangers and demanded that the children be handed over to him.

They know who this man is. In the last six years, his name, his mercenaries, have become the topic of many fearful whispers through the Green Wastes.

The twins’ protests and pleas fell on deaf ears, and they found themselves being dragged away from the vault, each of Ethan’s hands grasping one of their own. They shrieked in fear for the gleaming blades so close to their narrow wrists, trying to twist away from the stranger who claims to be their father and the cruel weapons he wields on his forearms. From that day forward they were trained in the art of survival and combat. They learned how to fire a rifle at the age of seven and make their own ammunition at nine. By ten they were building their own bombs and accompanying their elders on scouting and scavenging missions. Evie killed her first man on their eleventh birthday. Jacob killed his three weeks later.

At the age of fourteen Evie was commanding her own squad of teenage mercenaries under her father’s guidance, and Jacob was a habitual runaway and chem head.

The only reason he ever returned or tried to stay clean was for his sister. Where others treated his habits with disdain and disappointment, Evie treated them with concern; and not concern for the lack of a reliable partner watching her back on missions, but concern for a miserable brother she couldn’t seem to reach, who cried when he was strung out and whimpered his sister’s name.

If the Wastes were going to chew up one of them, it would have been Jacob, but Evie’s always been there to pull him back again.

They’re barely seventeen when they finally have a chance to break free.

 

* * *

 

The next time Jacob runs into Ned, it’s completely by accident.

And Evie isn’t with him because he can’t stand to disappoint her.

In the part of his mind where a shred of sobriety lingers, he knows it’s a Bad Ideaä to approach the small man and his glowering bodyguard. But just looking at Ned is like a drink of cold, purified water after a year of nothing but that irradiated crap that makes his stomach hurt and his throat burn. He’s riding a nice, easy high right now, a mixture of Jet and Daddy-O that gives him a nice, gentle buzz, the kind that shushes the sober voice and tells him approaching the beguiling thief is an excellent plan.

He bets himself the buzz Ned could give him would be even better.

The thought makes him giggle and that’s when Ned finally notices him. The small man turns, recognition and a bit of shock crossing his face. He offers Jacob a wary smile, those brilliant, shiny eyes taking in Jacob’s no doubt glazed ones. “Mr. Frye! What a surprise.”

Bunker Hill isn’t the kind of place chem heads frequent. Sure there are chem pushers there but they work in the shadows of the marketplace or deal just outside the gates. Jacob would prefer getting stoned in Goodneighbor but as Evie is involved in a personal war with Starrick’s lieutenant and the red-headed bitch decided to take it over a couple weeks ago, that’s no longer an option. Evie’s back at the church or maybe she’s left on a mission now. Either way she’s not here and the only reason he is, is Henry drives him nutty and he’d been doing a favor for Abberline and the Minutemen before deciding to stop over in Bunker Hill and hit up one of his regular dealers.

When Ned quirks a brow at him, Jacob realizes he’s staring with a sloppy grin on his face and shakes his head to clear it, pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against. “I was gonna say the same but I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise to see you in the biggest trading post in the 'Wealth, should it Mr. Wynert?” He chuckles again and a cold feeling settles in the pit of his stomach when he realizes that Ned realizes that he’s high. There’s a distinct change to his posture and his expression as he examines Jacob. It’s an expression Jacob knows all too well and he drops his head, his gaze focusing hard on the stones as he plays absently with the blade mounted on his forearm. “Been busy?” He asks; his voice more mellow than before.

Ned seems to consider him for a moment before one slim shoulder bobs up and down. “Fairly. Thanks to you and your sister, I suddenly find myself with an increase in business now that all of my caravans aren’t being ransacked by unknown forces.” He issues that last part with a sneer and crosses his arms, as they both know exactly who had been ambushing his traders and leaving them slaughtered along the trade routes.

Jacob smiles, and when Ned flashes an uncertain smile in return, Jacob lowers his gaze again. He has to because this time the smile may have been uncertain but there’s none of the tight-lipped derision that he had seen there a moment before. It’s more a resigned sort of acceptance of the commonplace occurrence in the 'Wealth and it isn’t much better but… It’s still better to see than the outright disdain and Jacob wants to… god he wants to do something stupid like run his fingers through Ned’s dark, curling locks and see if it’s as soft as it looks. He’s glad he’s a walking smear of filth that blends into the landscape because if he was even half as clean as Ned the trader would see the blush riding high on his cheeks. “Yeah well, always happy to help. 'Specially when there’s a fat sack of caps in it for us.” He chuckles, running a calloused finger over the mechanism of his blade, a nervous habit of his.

Ned snorts, his gaze lowering. Since Jacob is eyeing the device, he doesn’t notice that Ned is now as well, his sunrise eyes following the movement of Jacob’s fingers. “Frye?”

The taller man looks up, his fingers still tracing the mechanism as he regards the trader curiously. “Hm?”

“That gauntlet.” Jacob freezes, his hand stilling. “I’ve been wondering about it. Quite unusual.” Jacob’s hand curls into a fist and when Ned’s brilliant eyes lift back to his they’re still shining but Jacob doesn’t find any warmth in them this time. “Did you make it yourself?”

Suddenly Jacob can’t breathe. It’s like he’s been dunked face first into the Charles without warning. Both arms drop abruptly to his side and he barely registers the look of shock on Ned’s face before he spins on his heel and strides away, calculating just how many caps he still has and if it’s enough to spring for another inhaler of Jet.

 

* * *

 

The first time he’d gotten high it had been with Med-X.

It wasn’t the first time he’d run away. He wondered if Ethan even noticed any more. Certainly the hateful bastard didn’t care. Jacob wasn’t Evie and therefore wasn’t worth Ethan’s time. Jacob was good at killing, sure, but not as good as Evie. He also wasn’t as smart, as quick, as strategic or stealthy. He was physically more powerful than Evie, better at the hand-to-hand combat but, as his father put it, only because he was a big lumbering moron with more muscle than sense. He was more creative when it came to modding armor and weapons but Evie was more precise and technical. It didn’t matter if Jacob could cobble together something good from complete crap if it didn’t hold up in the long run or was as useful as one of Evie’s creations. And he fumbled too much, forgetting where pieces were supposed to go when he was reassembling his weapon or straight up losing the parts and having to requisition new ones. He was practically hopeless with everything but a shotgun but he had a decent throwing arm and when all else failed he had one hell of a right hook. His methods just weren’t as practical in the heat of battle, though, according to Ethan. For a while, Evie tried to help him when father wasn’t looking, but Jacob brushed her off.

She didn’t need to draw Ethan’s ire away from him. She didn’t deserve that.

Jacob, on the other hand…

He shoves that thought away as he pays attention to what the chem pusher is saying, teaching him how to strap his arm and find the vein. His hands are shaking as he slides the needle into the crook of his arm and the familiar cool feeling of the painkiller flooding his veins is like a comforting promise. He injects far more of it than he’s used to because Ethan isn’t here to scold him for being weak and he’s not trying to take the edge off the pain in the wrist he’s broken while sparing with his father. As more of the chem floods his system and the pusher lays a hand over Jacob’s to stop him from overdosing, Jacob thinks this might be even better than the memories of his Nana that he calls up to comfort himself. The drug feels icy around the injection point but the rest of him feels warm and tingly, kind of like when he closes his eyes and calls up his Nana’s wrinkly face, the warmth of her arms around him and the beat of her heart under her breast when she cradles his head and sings to him in a language he can’t understand. He feels… he feels good. He feels safe and good and warm, and he’s been cold and miserable for so long. For six long years he’s felt nothing but isolation and resignation, and Evie helps but only so much. She can’t stop their father; she can’t protect him, only stitch him up after and apologize over and over again, as if any of it is her fault. She cries sometimes, too, her tears soaking the top of his head but Jacob hasn’t cried in so long (“Men, especially men in this line of work, don’t cry, Jacob. Now, stop embarrassing me and dry up or I’ll break your other wrist. Give you a matching set you sniveling brat.”) He wonders if he even remembers how.

He sort of wants to cry now, with the soothing, blissful feeling the painkillers give him. His chest aches less, his head isn’t pounding and all those whispering voices in the back of his skull are harder to hear, and he thinks what they say now is more amusing than anything. He feels the tears prick at the corner of his eyes, lets them fall. 'Cause Ethan’s not here and for the first time in so, _so_ long he actually feels happy.

He’s a regular customer after that. Even after the 'new blood’ discount disappears and the prices for a vial of Med-X or an inhaler of Jetfuel skyrocket, Jacob is a regular with his pusher, until Ethan finds out.

The next day Jacob is missing two teeth and has a hastily stitched gash over his right eye, and the pusher’s head is mounted on a stake outside the compound.

 

* * *

 

He spends a lot of time away from Old North Church.

George is a cantankerous old bastard, nearly as hard to please as his father had been. He even finds fault with Evie, and Jacob has to bite his tongue hard to keep from shouting at the man every time he starts on his twin. Evie can fight her own battles and doesn’t need her chem head brother to butt in.

Alexander Bell is another Synth, and even as tiresome as listening to him drone on and blither about can be, Jacob likes the man. Unlike Greenie, he’s a Gen 2. Almost as human looking and with those same glowing eyes Green has. It’s easy to tell he’s one of the older models though because even with the fake mutton chops you can see the seams running down the side of his face, and he can fiddle with his own voice box all he wants but there’s a distinctly robotic tone to his voice. Still, he’s interesting and likes to give Jacob interesting new 'toys’ to play with.

He thinks he likes the scrawny, awkward little Gen 3 Synth that’s always trailing around him and Evie best, though. Nigel Bumble is adorable, there’s no other word for it. The kid (and yeah he’s a Synth but Jacob can’t help but think of him as a kid) is like an eager puppy and he’s so _fascinated_ by the Frye twins. He wants to be just like them, do what they do instead of sit around Alec’s workshop all day assisting him with his inventions. The few times Jacob has sneaked him out of the tunnels to go raise a little hell, Nigel’s handled himself well enough. He’s handy on a minigun anyway, that’s for sure, and with his Synth body he’s got the strength to haul one around no problem.

Clara’s another one he likes, though he’ll never admit it out loud. He likes to think the little ghoulette likes him as well, because she’s always got this little smirk on her face when they bicker that he knows is reflected on his own. She knows the city like nobody else and is their leading expert on the underground systems spread through the city. She and her gaggle of ghouls and orphaned children are better at reconnaissance than any of Ethan’s men had ever been. And as he’s seen tiny little Clara O'Dea slit a mutant hound’s throat from ear to floppy ear and then set about butchering it all while humming a happy little tune, he’s grateful she’s on his side.

So all in all, the Railroad isn’t that bad but he can’t stand sticking around there very long. They’re almost as needy as Abberline and his Minutemen, and he can’t stand the tight quarters of the underground hideout. It makes him itchy when he’s down there for longer than a few hours. Not itchy in the way that means he’s starting to jones for another hit but like he wants to start swinging to let off a little steam.

Maybe that’s why, as he’s cleaning some raider’s blood off his machete, he looks up at the crooked “COMBAT ZONE” sign above the theater entrance and considers heading in. He’d heard about the place from someone in Goodneighbor before Evie’s girlfriend moved in with her thugs, but he hadn’t ever thought to actually look for it.

Now here he is, having stumbled across it and he takes it as some sort of sign.

The foyer smells like cigarette ash, blood, puke, and piss. He smirks because, in all honesty, he likes it better than the cool, stale air of the crypts. He glances over to the pre-war ticket booths, now converted into holding cells where a couple of people are tied up and gagged with signs around their necks, describing their crimes. Above their heads, written in faded spray paint, are the words: TOPPING’S RULES: #1 NO FIGHTING OUTSIDE THE CAGE! #2 NO CAPS? NO ENTRY! #3 NO BEGGING! NO LOITERING!

The people in the holding cell look at him with pleading eyes but Jacob shrugs and turns away, one hand dipping into his pocket to see if he has any spare caps as he shoulders open the door to the actual theater.

The smell hits him first, that and the filthy, smothering heat of too many bodies and too many industrial lights in one place. There’s a grill going somewhere adding the smell of burning meat to that of the various bodily fluids that have been spilled in here over the years. The noise hits him next and he cringes a little in defense, resisting the urge to slap his palms over his ears as the commentator shouts over the crowd. “WOW WOULD YOU LOOK AT PAIN TRAIN ANDY GO! A CROWBAR TO THE KNEES AND HE'S STILL ON HIS FEET, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! CAN ANYONE STOP HIM?”

Jacob barely has the chance to let his eyes adjust to the blinding light to see what is happening on stage before some burly S.O.B. reeking even worse than the theater in general steps into his personal space and butts his chest against Jacob’s to send him back a few steps. “Help you, scavver?”

Jacob grins up at him. “Came to get my knickers washed. Ain’t this a laundromat?”

“You got caps, funny guy, or am I gonna need to take you back up front?”

“There’s no need for any of that, Seamus.” A familiar voice calls out somewhere ahead and to the left of them. Jacob squints his eyes, trying to see who it belongs to. “He’s with me.”

The big man dips his head and steps out of the way, motioning Jacob forward. “My apologies, Mr. Wynert. Didn’t know you was expectin’ someone.”

 _Ned_. Jacob swallows, thinks back to the last time they’d met and what an ass he’d made of himself. He sees the back of Ned’s head now, recognizes it almost instantly (and that’s not surprising since it features quite often in his dreams). He doesn’t know quite what to do, so he stands there stupidly for a moment before Ned lifts a hand without looking back at him and motions Jacob closer. “Join me, Frye.”

The merc doesn’t think he has any choice to obey, so he slouches down the aisle to where Ned is seated. The trader is sitting halfway down the row, his bodyguard sitting a few seats behind him with his feet propped up on the headrest of another chair and his arms folded across his chest. Ned pats the empty seat directly beside him and Jacob flops into it at the same moment the guard cups his hands around his mouth and shouts at the combatants on the stage. “Come on Andy! Crush him! Crush him! Crush him!” The chant gets taken up around the theater until it seems only Ned and Jacob aren’t joining in.

Feeling awkward and wishing for a hit of Med-X to calm his nerves (he doesn’t even need to consider the possibility of being able to find some here he’s already counted three deals going down in the last minute) he turns to Ned. “Now I can honestly say I’m surprised to see you here.” _Stupid_ , he thinks. _Stupid opening line you oaf_.

Ned smiles though, never taking his eyes off the cage. “We’re taking the day off to support Collin’s brother.”

The guard cackles behind them. It’s another shock, as Jacob has only ever seen the man looking grim and suspicious. “Andy’s gonna wipe the floor with this bozo and eat his brains for lunch. You watch, boss. Toldja it’d be a good show."

Ned’s chuckles, and now he does turn to Jacob. He could come to hate those eyes, he thinks. Those brilliant sunrise eyes, and the way they make him feel high without the chems. “Here on business?”

Jacob shakes his head. “Passing through. Heard about the place but I’ve never been. Seems like my kind of joint.”

“Oh?”

Jacob nods, though there’s a grim twist to his mouth now and he turns away from those pretty eyes cause he can’t look into them when he thinks about the dark in his past. “Yeah.” He doesn’t elaborate.

Ned doesn’t ask.

 

* * *

 

He fights with Evie a lot more often now, and he’s started sneaking in a few hits of Psycho when she’s out with Greenie to keep himself from completely crumbling.

The Psycho makes him feel… secure. He doesn’t worry when he’s on the stuff, he’s not afraid like he’ll never admit he is the rest of the time. Psycho makes him feel invincible and proud and yeah a little manic if he takes too much but he watches himself. More, the Psycho makes him feel alive. Without the constant insecurities eating at him he feels free and almost giddy. Sure that comes with increased aggression and a new, bloodthirsty edge that he has trouble keeping under wraps, but he’ll deal with it if it means he doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating in a rad storm all the time.

Ned knows he takes the chems and Jacob knows he knows and chooses not to comment on it and for that Jacob is grateful.

He wonders if he spends more time with Ned now because he’s lonely without Evie or because he genuinely likes the odd little man. He doesn’t know, he only knows that being with Ned makes the Commonwealth a little more bearable. Ned isn’t needy and demanding the way the Minutemen and Railroad are. They’re more like business partners instead of commander/foot soldier like he feels with Abberline and George and, nowadays, Evie.

He finds out that Ned is obsessed with Power Armor. Not just fascinated, but totally head-over-heels gaga for it. He knows all about probably three dozen or so suits worn by people famous throughout the Waste. He owns multiple garages that specialize in customization and modification and the few times Jacob has been to Ned’s private abode in his compound, Jacob’s been treated to a show-and-tell of Ned’s personal suits. He never uses them, he tells Jacob, because the Fusion Cores are precious and hard to come by but he mods them all himself.

Another thing the tiny trader enjoys is pre-war baseball. And he doesn’t tell it the way that loon who hangs around Diamon City tells it. Ned’s way seems a lot tamer but Jacob thinks he prefers it to the bloodthirsty arena battle that Crownin fella is always harping on about. He shows Jacob his collection of dusty pre-war baseball artifacts, including bunches that are signed by supposedly famous players.

Jacob wonders what the point of scribbling your name on things you didn’t own was but he doesn’t say anything to Ned.

The most important thing Jacob learns is that Ned doesn’t like to be touched. He learns that when, after weeks of spending an increasing amount of time in the little man’s company and feeling like, for the first time in memory, that he’s made a real friend, he lays his hand against Ned’s back in what he thinks is an affectionate, friendly gesture and the trader backhands him without conscious thought. He looks horrified afterwards and Jacob knows his face has gone blank, old instincts coming alive that make emotion bleed from his face as his head drops and his shoulders slump submissively. “Jacob-”

He shakes his head and leaves.

It’s nearly a month before he sees Ned again, and neither of them bring the incident up. Nor do they bring up the way Jacob cowered when Ned lifts his hand to shake the merc’s.

 

* * *

 

He has nightmares.

Nightmares that wake him up choking on bile and reaching blindly for his sister to assure himself that she’s still there.

Nowadays, she isn’t.

He doesn’t tell her they’re getting worse when they finally are together again. They’re fighting too much and the whispers in his head are telling him not to add this to the heaping pile of Utter Worthlessness and Disappointment that he is to her. It seems like every time they come together these days they just wind up shouting themselves hoarse at one another. Afterwards Evie goes off with Greenie and Jacob goes off to get high.

He doesn’t think the Psycho has anything to do with it. Sure the increase in his nightmare coincides with the increase in his intake but that’s just a coincidence.

So to distract himself he looks for other contracts to take. Maybe if he steps back a little from his Starrick thing, he’ll be able to clear his head and attack it anew.

And it’s with that thought in mind that he runs into one Pearl Attaway.

He’s on his way back to Old North Church after assisting Abberline with hunting down and wiping out a few particularly troublesome raider bands when he hears the gunfire. The Psycho in his veins tells him it’s a good plan to go over the rise and see what’s happening. There’s a small band of nicely dressed travelers and caravan guards fighting off a big band of what seems to be Triggermen. Jacob angles down and around the hill and flanks them. Before they know he’s there he’s taken out half a dozen and is dislocating the arms of another before stomping on their neck. With a manic grin he ducks behind an overturned cart as the rain of bullets turns towards him. He pulls the syringe from his pocket, uncaps it with his teeth, and slams the Psycho into the meatiest part of his arm.

 

* * *

 

Ethan Frye is a bastard and Jacob hates him nearly as much as Ethan hates his son.

There’s still always a desperate yearning for Ethan’s approval even when Jacob does something explicitly to piss the old merc off. Even when Ethan, fueled by a cocktail of vodka and Psycho, beats the shit out of his son and spits in his face, Jacob only wants Ethan to look at him with approval. Even if only once. He wants Ethan to look at him the way he looks at Evie, wants Ethan to look at him like he’s a person and not Mirelurk hatchling.

Evie’s cleaned his wounds and given him a stimpak and has told him to just sleep it off. Dad’s passed out now he won’t bother Jacob the rest of the night, and in the morning Evie will take him out scavenging, just the two of them. It’s said with an underlying plea for him to still be there in the morning.

He considers disappointing her.

 

* * *

 

Being with Evie is like a hit of Med-X. Not the cheap shit that pushers sometimes cut with only Atom knows what to save caps, but like a hit of the good old pre-war Med-X or the stuff made by the legitimate wasteland docs. She makes him feel calm, easy, makes the whispers in his head shut up for a while and the constant dull ache in his chest lighten.

Being with Ned is like a hit of Jet or maybe Jetfuel without the potential for the trip going wrong. He feels a little lightheaded and giddy and he notices everything around him. Time slows when he’s with Ned but in a good way. And when he looks into those shining eyes the high intensifies like he’s added some Mentats to the mix and it takes him a while to realize that part of that feeling is arousal. Ned turns him on, he wants Ned like he’s never wanted anyone else, but the bright shine on the Wastes that is Ned is too good for the taint of blood and chems and fire that is Jacob.

Being with Pearl is like taking Daytripper. He feels a little stupid around her, despite the fact that the Daytripper makes everything seems brighter and easier. The flirting comes easy to him when he’s with her—it’s so natural between them and she seems to reciprocate his feelings. So he doesn’t understand why he feels incompetent. Daytripper is a muscle relaxer that makes you feel loose and easy but the inadequacy he feels with her isn’t anything like that. He feels like he needs to prove himself to her so when she proposes a partnership he eagerly agrees, and suddenly the Minutemen and the Railroad and even Ned and his sister aren’t as important to him as Pearl’s approval. The first time she lets him touch her he walks away from the tryst embarrassed and confused and ashamed and with the memory of her cold laugh in his ear.

He resolves to do better, and when she tells him she needs him to obtain something for her, he is agreeing before she’s even finished her sentence.

He needs to talk to Ned.


	2. Some days I feel everything at once, Others nothing at all.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jacob goes to have a chat with Ned. Some raiders ruin that, and then Jacob ruins everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of this chapter, if you want to scream "FUCK YOU THEDI" I will totally understand.
> 
> If you want to do so you should totally come do it over on Tumblr @thedi-wreck-tor.

It only takes him a day and a half of travel to get from Pearl's base to Ned's compound.

 

The high walls, turrets, and guard posts rising above are a familiar sight to him now. It's _almost_ like coming home in a way. He's spent so much time just... spending time with Ned in the last few months that he thinks he might know this compound better than the Railroad HQ.

 

The one thing that isn't familiar about the compound is the giant hole in the wall that's still smoking slightly. He takes the last half mile at a run when he sees the smoke curling up into the sky, and it worries him when he doesn't see anyone manning the guard posts. He vaults the pile of rubble and debris littering the ground and makes a beeline for Ned's offices.

 

There are bodies and blood and severed limbs and gaunt-eyed survivors gathering the dead and stripping them bare. He ignores them, and they ignore him, throws the door open, and strides into the front room of the building that houses the command center of Ned's operations .

 

From the couch on the far wall, sporting a bleeding eye and an arm in a sling, Collin stares blearily at him. “Frye.”

 

“Where's Mr. Wynert?” The body guard shakes his head, letting it drop until his chin is against his chest. Jacob closes the distance and squats in front of the other man, gripping his shoulder tightly. “Collin where is your boss?”

 

Jacob's only heard the man laugh once. His face is always grim, mouth always set at a disapproving angle, his eyes hard and suspicious. Now his face his slack, his mouth turned down and his forehead looking smooth where normally there are creases and lines from his constant frowning. “There were so many of them... kept climbing over the walls like ferals. I tried to keep my eye on him but... they got me down and... Last thing I saw he was unconscious, over one of their shoulders.”

 

There's a ball of ice forming in the pit of his stomach. “Which way?”

 

Collin looks up at him, and Jacob sees a fire kindling in his eyes. “North. They were heading north with Ned and the other four they took. Some of the survivors, they were gibbering about that quarry up there, the pre-war Dunwich place? They were talking all sorts of nonsense but they talked about the Dunwich place. We can-” He starts to push Jacob's hand off his shoulder and stand but his injuries catch up to him. His face pales and he collapses back on the cushion, wheezing.

 

Jacob steadies the man with a hand on his shoulder. “I'll bring them back, Collin.”

 

The man looks at him with pain-hazy eyes and reaches up to grab the wrist of the hand on his shoulder, squeezing tight. For a moment they're in silence, before the body guard breaks it. “Frye, you bring him home in one piece, I'll take back every doubt I've ever had of you.”

 

* * *

 

 

He sneaks into his father's stash and steals a hit of Psycho.

 

Not many know about Ethan Frye's habit, but when the alcohol was no longer enough to quiet his grief over Cecily, he started taking Psycho to flush the weakness from his system. Jacob takes the chems to escape, to feel light and free. Ethan takes only one chem and it’s the one that makes gods out of men so that he can strike terror into the hearts of the settlers of the Green Wastes.

 

Jacob wonders what it would feel like, if he'd feel strong like Ethan does. He wonders if he copied his father's habit, it would make him more like his father, and therefore less of a disappointment.

 

So he steals away to his and Evie's secret place and he injects himself with it, old hat at this now, and waits.

 

The trip is bad.

  
He's never felt like this in his life and god he feels like he's on fire and freezing to death at the same time. He wants to fight the entire Wasteland and simultaneously burrow into the earth like a Molerat where no one can reach him. He punches the walls and breaks furniture and screams until his throat bleeds and then he starts ripping at his hair and arms. That's how Evie finds him, and when she tries to wrap her arms around him his mind screams _ENEMY_ and he attacks her.

 

She knocks him out, lays him flat on his back and he welcomes the darkness.

 

Coming down from the high is worse than the trip itself but she never leaves his side. She tells him how much she loves him, that she's so sorry, that he's so important to her and she _doesn't want to lose him shh now Jacob, it'll be alright_ as he pukes and bleeds the drug out of his system. He clings to her and begs her to kill him before he blacks out.

 

The next time he tries Psycho it’s at a much smaller dose and from a pusher he trusts.

 

And it does exactly what he'd thought it would: it makes him feel powerful.

 

* * *

 

 

The place is so far north that the very idea they came from there baffles him but the survivors insist.

 

He doesn't bother reporting back to Evie himself. She's probably too busy _noticing_ Greenie to notice if he's gone for a few weeks. He resupplies from Ned's stashes, gives an order to re-fortify the compound and tells Collin to contact his Rooks stationed to the west in the marshes for reinforcements, giving him his personal callsign so the Rooks know it was Jacob issuing the order.

 

He straps on some armor scavenged from the dead raiders and heads north.

 

It takes him nearly a whole week to get there because the 'Wealth is an unforgiving bitch, particularly to a loner. Still, he makes it to the ravine he's seen on maps but never been to himself, mostly in one piece. He's heard shit about the wide-eyed, jittery, supposedly crazed raiders that live there but he doesn't put much stock into it until he ducks into an outbuilding for a little recon and activates the terminal.

 

 _ITSSAFEINTHELIGHTITSSAFEINTHELIGHTITSSAFEINTHELIGHT_ blinks at him in glowing green letters, an endless loop of madness some poor soul had been compelled to type out. When he takes a good look around, he see the walls are covered in unsettling graffiti and pristinely clean skulls line the tops of the file cabinets.

 

It’s then that someone screams.

 

* * *

 

 

Evie asks him not to take Psycho, or Fury, or Overdrive, or any of that shit. She doesn't approve of the chems in general but she doesn't even mention the other stuff he takes. She just lays her hands on his as she's nursing him through the shaky end of another bad trip, where he comes home to her covered in blood and vomit and brain matter and bearing wounds that would incapacitate him if he was sober. She's cleaned him up and he's mostly over the chem now as she threads their fingers together and all she says is “Please, Jacob.”

 

He knows that she's asking him to give up the Psycho if nothing else, and he promises her he will.

 

It's the only promise to her that he's ever broken.

 

* * *

 

 

He can't look to the middle of the quarry. Not only because he's fighting perhaps fifty raiders, one armed with not only a full set of power armor but a rocket launcher to boot, but because when he did first glance at the high cages standing over the massive bonfire he thought he'd recognized the smallest figure trapped within.

 

He can't think on that possibility now so he throws grenades and flares and dislodges huge pieces of machinery and slams needle after needle of Psychojet and Med-X into his thighs and biceps and adds in a few stimpaks 'cause even though he doesn't feel it he knows he's being hit.

 

He crushes skulls with his bare hands and rips gibbering raiders apart. They babble nonsense he doesn't have time to understand at him and he finally snags a sniper rifle off one corpse and gets off possibly the greatest, luckiest headshot he's ever made in his life into the skull of the raider in the power suit. The bullet rips through the man and his head disintegrates and he giddily thinks the gun will make a nice present for Evie even as he spins and dispatches the last few raiders.

 

Then he stands there confused for a moment because the screaming hasn't stopped and he's so fucking high right now he can't rightly remember _why_ he's here in the first place, until a familiar voice shrieks his name.

 

“JACOB!”

 

He spins towards the voice and sees the bonfire is inside the cage now it’s so high. He rushes towards it, panicking as he racks his brain for a way to put the flames out--

 

There's pipes coming out of the wall, and a water purifier attached to the end of some. He pounces on it and with the Psycho pumping through his veins he rips apart the joints and beats at them with a shovel that he grabs until they burst and he's hit in the face with a jet of water. It's like being headbutted by a Brahmin and goes a long way towards sobering him up even as he clings to the side of the rattling purifier while the water floods the quarry. The fire dies with a hiss and a crackle and the smoldering wood is washed away along with the cooked corpses and charred bones littering the area beneath the cage.

 

He jumps off the purifier when the stream of water dies down and wades towards the construct, leaping up to grab the bars. He hauls himself up so he can hook his feet through them, anchoring himself upside-down as he pops the blade on his gauntlet and attacks the lock.

 

The person curled inside whimpers and curls closer to the far wall of the cage as Jacob lets the trapdoor drop open so he can pull himself inside. He crawls to each of the four badly burned bodies trapped inside with the shivering survivor and quickly checks for signs of life.

 

None.

 

So he scoops up the survivor who protests weakly, pushing at his arms as he gathers them close to his chest and jumps down, landing with a splash beneath the cage. He wades with them towards a lift and slams the button with his elbow. He tries not to jostle the person in his arms or to hold them too tightly to his chest but his hands are quaking from the chems still in his system. Being gentle is a struggle when the shit in his blood is hissing and spitting for more carnage. He tries, though, god he tries and he doesn't look down or speak because he's _seen_ and he knows if he does he'll fuck everything up 'cause that's what _he does_.

 

Neither he nor the survivor says a word until they're above the quarry. Jacob sets the survivor down for a second, sweeping the area to ensure none of the raiders escaped his wrath before he secures them in an outbuilding and lays them out on an abandoned bedroll.

 

The survivor tries to curl up, to swat him away.

 

“Stop.”

 

The survivor trembles but stops fighting, and Jacob rolls the narrow, battered body over until its flat against the bedroll so he can assess the damage. It could be worse. So much worse. The other bodies were cooked and charred in places but the survivor is so small, so narrow that the worst of the burns are contained to the patches of skin that were touching the bars at the bottom of the cage. The survivor kept themselves out of the worst of it and didn't pass out from choking on the smoke so... so it could have been so much worse. He checks the worst of the wounds, trying not to touch the heated skin as much as possible and he can feel a pair of beautiful eyes staring at him intently, waiting for him to say something, but the Psycho makes him dumb and sloppy so he doesn't know _what_ to say.

 

The person he recognizes as Ned has breasts beneath the tattered, burned remains of the once nice suit. Things start clicking in Jacob's brain, and he doesn't know how he didn't see it before. Then he realizes he wasn't supposed to, and he feels like a complete and utter useless fool.

 

His gaze lifts to Ned's glazed, pleading eyes, and after a long moment he turns away. He shucks his armor as quickly as he can, (ignoring the nearly imperceptible hitch in Ned's breathing) so he can pull off his jacket and drape it over Ned's torso. For once, he's confident in the first thing that comes out of his mouth. “Fancy meeting you here, Mr. Wynert.” He says it while looking into Ned's eyes, which are cloudy and unfocused but still so beautiful, as he sits back on his rump and digs into the pouch on his thigh for his stash of stimpaks.

 

Ned closes his eyes and sighs.

 

* * *

 

  
He doesn't remember the boy's name now.

 

The chems have burned the name from his mind and the face is blurry now. Sometimes, when he remembers the boy in his nightmares, he sort of looks like Ned. The twins are maybe fifteen or sixteen at the time. Ethan is so proud of Evie. She's a trained killer now and the blood smeared on her hands is thick. She's his perfect little war machine, possibly surpassing even him in her ruthlessness and skill.

 

His son is nothing but a walking mistake, dismissed easier than a flea.

 

 _He_ doesn't think so, though. _He_ tells Jacob nice things and laughs at Jacob's stupid jokes and likes to hold Jacob's hand while they walk in the Wastes beyond the compound where no one can see them. He says he's a farm boy from the nearby settlement and that his mother has told him to be afraid of the mercs living in the old fort, but if someone like Jacob is among them, they can't be all bad.

 

Jacob doesn't correct him.

 

He's Jacob's first. He tries probably too hard to impress the other boy and he finishes embarrassingly fast but his lover is all shy smiles and gentle hands and he craves this cute freckly farm boy more than the chems.

 

Ethan finds out.

  
He goes to meet his lover one day and finds Ethan in their secret meeting place, the place they found together and promised each other they wouldn't share with anyone else. His father informs him 'the little fucking creep' was a spy from a rival merc company. That he'd been trying to spy on the organization and that Jacob nearly cost them all their lives with his weakness. He says this all very calm and matter-of-fact and when he stands to leave he gets right into Jacob's personal space, because his son is frozen in terror and disbelief and his body won't respond even though his mind is screaming at him to run, and he tells Jacob that if he ever threatens the safety of the company again, he, Ethan, will kill him personally.

 

He expects Ethan to leave him then, but the old merc catches his teenage chem head son around the neck and wrestles him into the crumbling little shack. The teen cries out and tries to fight back, terror clawing its way up to his brain finally and giving it a kick-start, but Etan shoves Jacob to the ground, kicks him in the ribs, and slams the door shut.

 

Jacob hears something being jammed against the door and when he throws himself at it he finds it immovable. Ethan has trapped him inside.

 

“The chems are rotting your brain, _boy._ You're a dangerous moron and I'm tired of cleaning up your mistakes. Let's see if a few days in this hole straightens you out.”

 

* * *

 

 

The journey home is slow going. Ned's malnourished, even for a Wastelander. He was slim before but Jacob wonders if he's eaten at all since his capture over a week ago. His burns pain him constantly and he refuses any of the chems in Jacob's stash. Jacob, on the other hand, has plenty of wounds and isn't shy about doping up. He doesn't get as high as he would if he was alone because Ned is too weak to keep watch for more than a couple hours. When he helps Ned re-dress his wounds Jacob makes sure to apply the topical salve as thickly as he can without being ridiculous on the nasty burns and deep cuts, and he uses every stimpak he has on him and a couple he manages to scavenge from raiders he kills along the way to keep Ned on his feet. He stops offering the Med-X after the first day, though, knowing Ned won't accept. They spend a lot of time holed up in whatever shelter Jacob can find, whiling away the hours by talking.

  
They talk about a lot of things. First Jacob tells him about Pearl and how he'd come to Ned for help with the heist he was planning, and how he'd heard what had happened and rushed up here. Ned thinks he's a fool and berates Jacob for rescuing him. “Where do you get off saving me? I hate being indebted to people, I can't stand it when someone else holds the account.”

 

“I could just leave you here, you ingrate. See if you can get back on your own.”

 

Ned smirks at him, ducking his head a little so the collar of Jacob's jacket (which he hasn't returned yet) covers him up to his ears. “I'm not thanking you for that asinine show you put on.”

 

Jacob shakes his head as he hacks at a can of pork n' beans with his machete. “You're such a pain in my arse, Wynert. I've no idea why I bother with you.”

 

They talk about what Jacob saw, and how. Though Ned tries to tell him, in a resigned sort of voice, that there was no way to avoid it, Jacob feels crushing guilt for betraying a trust he didn't even know he held, no matter how accidental the betrayal was. When they talk about it, Jacob's curious and clumsy but he tries. And really, when it gets down to brass tacks he doesn't care. Ned doesn't believe that, no matter how much Jacob insists. He really doesn't care, it doesn't change the way Jacob feels about the trader. As long as Ned is Ned, that's enough for him. That's more than enough, in fact. He really doesn't care about the details, he says. As long as Ned is Ned, and Ned is safe, that's all that matters to him. Everything else is just details and ammo clips.

 

He still has nightmares. They don't come as frequently or clearly while they’re on the road, maybe because he hardly sleeps long enough for one to start. Ned tries to assure him that he can keep watch for longer than it takes Jacob to get a cat nap in but Jacob just shrugs. He tries to explain his unease to Ned without revealing just how much Jacob _needs_ Evie watching his back just to function. He tells Ned he just isn't used to letting his guard down without his sister and Ned accepts that and they move on.

 

It's Ned's nightmares that worry him. When he can finally get the trader to settle down to rest and stop insisting they get a few more miles in, Ned sleeps fitfully. He tosses and turns on the bed roll, his breath uneven and sweat on his brow. His injuries are aggravated by all the movement and if he would just let Jacob give him a _little_ Med-X it would be so much easier. The pain does serve one purpose, though. It wakes Ned up from the terrors in his dreams since Jacob can't do it for him.

 

He remembers the sharp sting of Ned's knuckles against his cheek.

  
Then there comes a night where they've holed up in the back of a vacant Red Rocket truck stop. Jacob's sitting in a chair near the door, shotgun in his lap as his eyes sweep the lot out front. Ned is stretched out on his bedroll near the fire, trembling despite the warmth at his back. Jacob's knee begins to bounce in agitation as he listens to the small, distressed sounds coming from the trader. _Atom_... he's so stupid! He wants to go over and scoop the small man up and press him to his chest and shield him from the darkness and stroke his hand over that soft, dark hair and-

 

He shakes his head and stares obstinately out into the lot, trying to tune Ned out by reciting the lyrics to a song he heard on the radio.

 

He only looks back over when he hears Ned gasp and scramble off the bedroll, pushing himself away until his back hits a wall where he brings his knees up to his chest so he can rest his forehead against them and cover his face.

  
  


“I'm right here, Ned.” _Shit, maybe I should have kept my mouth shut. What if he-_ He'd just thought... Evie always said something like that when he woke up from a bad one. Maybe Ned needed the same thing or maybe he didn't want Jacob acknowledging what had just happened _fucking hell I'm an idiot I should have just shut up-_

 

But to his surprise (and relief), Ned nods and looks up at him, eyes dark and distant. “I know. Thank you.”

 

They watch each other for a moment before Ned stands on shaky feet and staggers over to Jacob's chair, leaning heavily against the wall so he can slide down onto the floor next to him. He leans against Jacob, head resting against the bigger man's hip. With his eyes closed, he asks “Is this alright?”

 

Jacob swallows. “Yeah.”

  
He wonders if the rest of the night is so quiet because the entire Wasteland can hear his thoughts about decimating anything that interrupts this moment.

 

* * *

 

  
Though Ned is slowly gaining strength, they still have to spend long periods stationary so he doesn't over exert himself. They find a battered pack of cards on a raider that Ned shot on his watch when the man tried to sneak up on them. Despite him being the only one to attack and Jacob finding no others in the vicinity, they move camp. When they settle down again by the fire for the night, Ned pulls out the cards and starts shuffling. Jacob feels a little entranced by the skillful way his hands shuffle and fan the cards, and he wonders if the trader is showing off a little.

 

Jacob would, if their positions were reversed and he could shuffle a deck of cards.

 

They play go fish because they don't want to play poker with just the two of them and it's the first game that comes to Jacob's mind. Ned sits cross-legged next to his bedroll while Jacob perches on an overturned bucket. They play a full round, teasing each other and making small talk. As they're setting up for the second round, Ned performing more tricks as he shuffles the deck, Jacob snorts at him. “Show-off.”

 

Ned winks. “Don't be jealous, Frye. Actually, you're pretty dexterous, I can't understand how you don't know how to do this. It seems like something you'd do to show off for the ladies.”

  
Jacob snorts again, adding in a middle finger that he rubs jokingly against his forehead. He ignores the way Ned's laugh makes his belly quiver. “Where'd you learn, anyway?” To his surprise, Ned blushes. It's hard to see in the firelight but there's color in Ned's cheeks and his eyes widen ever so slightly as he fumbles with the cards and drops half of them into the dirt. He swears and starts to pick them up, but Jacob swipes a few before he can and holds them out of Ned's reach. “Neeeeeeeeed...”

  
The trader huffs. “You're going to laugh.”

 

That wasn't the response the merc had been expecting but now he can't let it go. He grins toothily at the smaller man and wiggles the cards. “You have to tell me now. Where did you learn?”

 

“I could just lie to you.”

 

“Yeah, but now that you've made a scene of it, I would know.”

 

He huffs again, biting the inside of his cheek as he stares hard at Jacob for a moment. “I learned... from another member of the Church.” Jacob quirks a brow and Ned's blush darkens. “The Church of the Children of Atom.” Silence reins for all of thirty seconds before Jacob starts laughing. It starts with a great ' _HA_ ' before he folds over onto his side, arm wrapped around his middle as he laughs so hard his chest aches and his face starts to hurt. “I hate you.” Jacob laughs even harder at that, tilting backwards on his bucket seat. He laughs so hard he sways to the side and falls off the seat with a crash and a sharp, aching pain in the arm he lands on but even then he can't stop laughing. Ned aims a kick at his head that he barely dodges, tears streaming down his face. “You are such an asshole, Jacob Frye!” The trader hisses.

 

“Oh... oh man, oh man, I'm just-” He dissolves into laughter again, rolling onto his back. “Oh man I'm just picturing little Ned Wynert with his head shaved bald and a fucking colander hanging from his neck-” The image causes him to dissolve into more barking laughter. Ned throws the deck of cards at him and finally, Jacob starts to get his breath back. He props himself up, still chortling and swipes the tears from his eyes. “Oh man, I bet you were an awfully adorable little acolyte.”

 

Ned scowls. “Shut up.”

 

Jacob sniggers and bumps Ned's foot with his own. “Come on Ned, why'd you leave?”

 

Ned flips him off. “None of your business, you ass. Fine then, where'd you come from?”

 

That sobers Jacob up quickly and he freezes. If he'd been looking at Ned in that moment he would have seen the way the trader's eyes widened in surprise at the action. Incidentally, his gaze has fallen to the blade on his wrist. Jacob coughs, clearing his throat. They... _He_ doesn't talk about it. Evie doesn't talk about it either, mostly because he doesn't, but he supposes he owes Ned. Tit for tat. “I ah... I was born in Maine.”

 

Ned leans back and crosses his arms. “You're pretty far from home, kid.”

 

Jacob nods. “That was... that was the point.” He rubs his neck nervously. How much can he tell Ned? He feels kind of guilty for laughing now, but if he tells the trader too much... His hand goes nervously to the mechanism on his arm and he starts fingering the edge of the blade. “We... we couldn't stay.”

 

“Jacob.” Ned waits until the younger man looks over at him. “It's alright.”

 

He looks up at Ned with what can only be described as... vulnerability. He ponders for a moment before adding “It was too dangerous for us to stay after... a point. So we headed west. And then I joined up with a traveling circus.” Ned's sympathetic look dissolves into one of irritated disbelief. Jacob smiles and bobs his head. “I swear, ask Evie. Once we passed the border between Maine and New Hampshire, we found this like, traveling circus doing rounds of the settlements there. They had trained creatures and did these insane stunts. Evie was setting up contracts for us in this settlement on Ossipee Lake. Can't remember what the settlement was called, probably cause I found the circus and one of their clowns traded me some chems. Anyway-” He waves that away and gestures vaguely into the air. “Next thing I know I'm waking up in the back of the cart with the Molerat cages. Guess while I was high I thought it'd be a good idea to accept their invitation to travel with them. When I was sober, still didn't seem like a half-bad plan so... Spent the first couple months shoveling shit and pickpocketing the suckers that came to see the show to earn my place, but after a while the performers painted me up like a ghoul and let me be in one of their acts. 'Bout ah... seven, eight months into it, I'm one of their headliners, right?” He gestures grandly now, spreading his arms wide and posturing himself to an invisible audience. “Fearless Frye, who would face off against a gaggle of Ferals or wrestle a Radscorpion with nothing but his brute strength and the blade strapped to his wrist while the audience screamed for his blood.” Jacob grins, remembering that time far more fondly than it deserves. “Yeah, they're always rootin' for the creatures to disembowel you but damn if I didn't make a fuckton of caps letting them down.”

 

He looks to Ned, expecting to see the man laughing at him but instead Ned is just giving him this odd little smile that looks more like a frown. Jacob blinks, confused, before Ned's smile brightens. “Well, I'm glad you disappointed them.”

 

Jacob's grin is so wide it hurts his cheeks.

 

* * *

 

 

There are a few hitches while they're on the road. Besides the raiders and wasteland creatures that hamper their progress, they're hampered by Ned's injuries and Jacob's insistence that Ned rests up, even when Ned insists he's fine to continue. Ned feels like Jacob is patronizing him and Jacob feels like a bumbling idiot who tries to explain he just wants to make sure he gets Ned back in acceptable condition. He doesn't add how strong the desire to simply pick up the tiny trader and carry him back to civilization is. Ned seems to accept some contact between them now but Jacob's not a complete moron. He knows if he even suggested it Ned would probably cut his hands off.

 

The make it back in just under two weeks. Ned's sturdier on his feet and his wounds are healing well but he's sore and tired and dirty and by the end of their journey he's much quieter and his temper is shorter. When the heat haze starts to clear enough for them to see the walls of the compound, Ned's shoulders slump and he sags against Jacob's side for a moment.

 

“Thank you, Jacob.” Jacob hesitates before lifting his hand and touching the small of Ned's back. The trader tenses briefly, and lets out a sigh when Jacob drops the hand again.

 

Later Jacob realizes that the only chems he's touched in the past two weeks are stimpaks and Med-X. He files that away where he doesn't have to examine the implications too closely, and starts to check the dressings on Ned's burns while they discuss the heist.

 

* * *

 

 

All Jacob knows about the thing Pearl wants stolen is that it's a bit of machinery that's being stored in a strongroom near Goodneighbor. Due to his little detour to rescue Ned (something Ned still pretends to gripe over because it means he owes the merc and he hates owing people) Pearl's deadline is fast approaching. She wants the device stolen before it’s moved from its current location. Luckily, he has Ned to help him plan the heist and for some reason he can stand Ned's meticulous planning more than he can Evie's.

 

He thinks it has something to do with Ned's god damn, brilliant, shining, fucking sunrise eyes.

 

Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that Ned doesn't berate and shoot him down like Evie tends to, especially lately. He seems to value Jacob's input.

 

He stops taking the Psycho altogether. He doesn't need it when Ned is around. The only reason he takes anything else now is to still the shakes in his hands and quiet the voices bouncing around in his head. Ned keeps him grounded, kind of like Evie used to but the feeling is stronger. He doesn't fear disappointing Ned the same way he fears disappointing Evie. He doesn't worry that Ned doesn't want him around the same way he fears Evie doesn't—especially lately. In the last few months he's been lonely, even around Evie. And with Ned, he doesn't feel that way.

  
He doesn't have to tip toe around, put on a facade, or be anything other than Jacob around the trader. Ned seems to accept the whole sub-par package that is Jacob. He can relax, kick back when they aren't planning, and just enjoy Ned's company.

 

And when Ned lets him check on his burns, Jacob feels needed. He feels wanted. He relishes the trust that Ned puts in him. And he tries so hard not to let his touch linger on that soft, clean skin.

 

* * *

 

  
The room is tight, built half-under a small hillock, and there's no light save for the crack at the bottom of the crooked door. Jacob gives up trying to break it down when he's broken his third finger, busted open his knuckles, and jammed his shoulder by the second day. Instead he curls up against the wall beside the door and spends the long hours tracking the light across the floor until it disappears at night. He wonders how long Ethan plans to leave him there. Surely... _surely_ he'll come back in the morning? He has to, you can only survive so long without food and water. There's nothing in the shack, Ethan obviously knows that. And he hates his son but... _surely_ he won't just let Jacob die?

 

All he has to eat is a package of Gum Drops he's taken to stashing in the knife sheathe on his calf. He tries to ration them but he's fucking starving, and they don't do much but when he finally breaks and pours whats left in the box into his mouth on the third day, it takes the sharpest edge off the hunger. He has his canteen, the bastard hadn't taken that (thank Atom) and he tries to make it last but on the fourth day he sticks his tongue into the hole and licks the dry metal casing and now he's afraid. He's giddy with relief when it starts to rain on the night of the fifth day. There are no holes in the roof or the thick stone wall for water to drip through but the shack is at the bottom of a slight incline and dampness seeps under and around the crooked door. He presses his lips to the ground and slurps the water up, then rips off the sleeve of his shirt to soak up more so he can squeeze it into his canteen.

 

The only thing he isn't hurting for is the chems. He's got more than enough to last.

 

He takes too many, because the alternative is being aware of himself when he finally dies. He gets to high he doesn't care if Ethan comes back anymore. He accepts that he's going to die here. This room, this dark little room is his coffin. And really, what a nice coffin. Nothing can get to him in here. He's safe from hungry critters and greedy scavvers and it’s such a nice, quiet spot to die in. This is his tomb, his final resting place and really, it could be worse.

 

* * *

 

 

The plan is both simple and complex, and as there are lots of explosives involved, Jacob is super into it.

 

He's not so into the fact that they have to do it underground.

 

But... _things that go 'boom'_!

 

On the other hand, he has to leave Ned behind because the trader isn't fully recovered from his ordeal.

 

_**But** _ _I’ll get the chance to make a nice big 'boom'!_

 

He needs that tech, and he needs it fast so he leaves Ned at his compound (and if the “Give them hell” that Ned sends him off with makes Jacob's stomach flutter, he doesn't admit it), and meets up with a couple of his Rooks and Ned's men. Then they go to meet Ned's demo dude.

 

The demolitions man, a little weirdo named Mel, is accompanied by a petite, waif-looking woman he calls Sonya, who carries a strange weapon that looks far too big for her. When Jacob leads the group up to him, Mel's eyes seem to shine and he blatantly checks the merc out. “You Ned's boy?” He asks. Jacob bristles, but he doesn't answer. Mel chuckles. “He sure does find the most _interesting_ friends.”

 

Despite all the unwarranted flirting, Mel and Sonya are capable. The weapon Sonya carries is some sort of sonic weapon that grates on Jacob's slowly fraying nerves the more it's used, but it cuts down on noise (ironically) and lowers the chance of a cave-in despite being as powerful, if not more so, then a bunch of C4. The tunnels are full of Mirelurks and ferals, and not all of those are the foot soldier types. There's a Mirelurk king and a few hunters and at one point, with the group donning their gas masks to be able to withstand the stench, they face down a putrid feral that nearly rips out Mel's throat. Jacob uses the distraction to pounce on the disgusting monster's back and twist its neck until it breaks with a _CRACK_ that makes his companions cringe as their necks throb with empathetic pain. They reach the strongroom soon after that, set the homing beacon so the rest of the crew can locate them, and set the charges.

 

They blow a hole in the floor that sends half the strongroom's contents crashing down into the sewers, and some of the men stationed within come down with it. They surge up through the ground and start firing (or in Jacob's case, swinging his machete and his fists) at the survivors.

 

The ambush is successful (only two of their men died and Mel has a broken arm so Jacob counts it as an overall success) and they search the warehouse for the tech. When they find the crate they've been looking for they haul it onto a relatively sturdy cart and wheel it out into the lot to wait for the reinforcements. They show up about twenty minutes later, and Jacob is shocked to find Ned with them. “You're supposed to be resting, dummy.”

 

Ned smiles tightly at him. “Don't patronize me Frye.”

 

That stings.

 

He scowls at Ned and turns his back to help haul the crate from the hand cart onto the Brahmin-pulled sled. Ned steps closer, curious, and together they pry off the lid. Inside is a bright, shiny silver suitcase. They haul that out and work all of the latches and locks open and stare at the machinery within. It takes him a moment to realize what it is and in the same second he does, there's a sharp intake of breath beside him. “That's a-”

 

“Yeah.” Jacob nods and leans against the crate, staring into the suitcase.

 

“Jacob, this is a-”

 

“I know.”

 

“And you're just... you're _just giving this_ to her?”

 

Jacob scowls and adjusts his hat, pulling it low over his eyes so he doesn't have to look at Ned. “No I mean... she's paying me. What does it matter, I'm paying you, too. And it's not like she's gonna scrap it or something-”

 

“How do you know what she's going to do with it?” Jacob doesn't say anything in response. “Jacob you can't just go and give this away.”

 

The merc stands, towering over the trader but Ned doesn't back down, doesn't even lean away. “What does it matter, you'll be paid all the same.”

 

“Do you not see she's using you, dumbass?”

 

That doesn't sting, it hurts. Jacob slams the lid shut. “Are you gonna help me deliver it, or no?”

 

Their men are listening in now, some of them nervously glancing to each other or between the two arguing men. Collin, back on his feet and once more posing as Ned's ever-looming shadow, eases closer, staring intently at Jacob. The merc watches Ned as the smaller man bites the inside of his cheek and throws an angry glare at the G.E.C.K. unit before his eyes snap back to Jacob. The sunrise in his eyes is gone, and now it’s like a radiation storm is swirling behind them he looks at Jacob with such venom. “You can't just give this thing away to some tart you've got a hard-on for, Jacob.”

 

“And what would you do with it then, hmm?” He snaps. “Put it on a shelf like all your stupid little toys and those suits of Power Armor you don't even use?” He ignores the hurt look that crosses Ned's face at that and even more aggressively ignores the way his belly clenches with what he'll never admit is guilt. “Collect it and let it collect dust while you hoard it like a Molerat in a trash heap?”

 

Collin makes to step around Ned, his face twisted in fury and Jacob hopes... _Atom_ but he hopes the grim-looking bastard makes a move so he can punch the fucking teeth out of his skull. Ned whips a hand up to his body guard's chest though, stopping him in his tracks and staring at Jacob with a carefully schooled mask. “Jacob, you are not going to just hand this over to Attaway.”

 

The merc cocks his head slightly, fire in his eyes even as his expression goes carefully blank as he saunters a few steps forward, ignoring the warning growl from Collin. A few of the assembled men shift into ready stances, still looking unsurely around at each other. “I found it.”

 

The trader gapes at him for a moment. “Are you _serious_?” Jacob just crosses his arms over his chest, watching the tiny man. Ned slaps his hand over his own chest, color riding high on his cheeks. “You wouldn't have ever gotten in here without my maps, my men, _my demolitions expert_.” He spits. “All you did was find out where it was being held and punch a few people, you obtuse _asshole_!”

 

For a moment, everything is quiet except for the quiet crumbling of the warehouse floor and the crackle of a few fires that are still burning. Then Jacob spits into the dirt off to his side, because there's too much saliva pooling in his mouth and the last shred of his sanity is yelling at him to _shut the fuck up just shut the fuck up please please just shut up_ but he ignores it and says “You owe me.”

 

He thinks Ned might have had a less intense reaction if Jacob had just hauled off and punched him in the face. The moment it passes Jacob's lips he regrets it, he regrets everything, he regrets going to meet Ned with Evie all those months ago, he regrets ever setting foot in the Commonwealth to begin with. He'd add regretting ever being born to the list but it's been at the top for nearly fifteen years. It's the most disgusting lie he's ever told because Ned owes him nothing for saving his life. Ned owes him nothing because Jacob would have traveled much farther and fought against even more staggering odds to rescue his... his friend. Ned's his friend, his best friend the only real friend he's had besides Evie and that sweet freckle-faced farm boy all those years ago, or at least he was five minutes ago maybe, and now Jacob has ruined everything but he just stands there, silent. He just watches, numb and cold inside as Ned pales, the color leeching from his handsome face as he takes an involuntary step backwards, the shine in his beautiful sunrise eyes dying. It's not like the sunset this time, its like the sun has just simply burned out and disappeared and Jacob hates himself in that moment more than he thinks he ever has before. Everyone, even over-protective, grim-faced Collin are frozen in shock by Jacob's words.

 

Ned and Jacob stare at each other, unblinking, and Jacob thinks he can _hear_ the connection between them snap in two.

 

“I expect payment, in full, in two days time.” He finally croaks out, spinning on his heel and squaring his shoulders as he walks away from the merc, trying to keep his composure but Jacob sees the way his hands shake where they're balled into fists at his side. He pauses and without looking back, says “Our partnership, from this moment on, is dissolved. Good day, Mr. Frye.” He leaves, his men trailing after him while Collin stays a moment longer. His eyes are cold and full of the kind of loathing Jacob has seen in only one other pair of eyes and it makes Jacob sick. Then he too, turns and leaves and Jacob is left with his men and a machine meant to promote life that may have just killed whatever was left of Jacob.

 

The merc, who looks so much like his late, unlamented father, turns away from Ned's retreating back and barks orders at his men to move out.

 

* * *

 

 

When Evie finds him he's conscious but far, far away, in a place where Ethan can't reach him. He's thrown up everything in his stomach and part of the lining and the front of his pants are wet because he's too dazed and weak to move to relieve himself. He's dehydrated and his stomach is cramping so hard he no longer feels the pain. His head is swimming, he tastes and smells copper and the side of his face that's against the ground is sticky and tight, covered in congealed blood from his nose.

 

He listens to Evie sob and beg him to answer her, the sound distant and tinny in his ears. He can see her face leaning over him but he focuses on the blinding light haloing her from the doorway.

 

Things start coming back into focus, and he recognizes the sick, lethargic feeling of being under the influence of Addictol. He sighs dejectedly at that. Where did Evie even get the money for that shit, and why would she waste it on the walking pile of Deathclaw dung that is her twin? It doesn't make sense. He listens to her plead with him to come back, to hold on, to please, please _Jacob please don't leave me I love you brother I'm so sorry_ \--

 

He licks his lips and when he remembers how to use his tongue to form words, he squeezes his sister's hand and looks up at her, his face and his voice calm and serious as he asks her, once again, to put him out of his misery. “Please, Evie. Please just kill me.”

 

Just like before, she ignores him as he slides under the meds and blacks out.

 

* * *

 

 

Pearl likes him more now, it seems. When words comes that he's got the tech, she meets him in the warehouse with a sly grin on her face. They celebrate with wine and Daytripper and a half dozen inhalers of Jet as they roll around on the creaky bed in her office, laughing and stroking and making long, lazy, giddy love.

 

He forgets all about that last interaction he had with Ned.

 

In fact, he mostly forgets about Ned altogether ( _have to_ , his mind supplies, _because I can't think about the way he looked when I said it_ ). He forgets about Evie and all the rest, too. Pearl is the only one on his mind now. She's all that matters, or rather, pleasing her does. She could slap a collar and leash on the merc and order him to lick her goddamn boots and he'd probably thank her for it by this point. She keeps him high and happy and fucks his brains out on a regular basis and he's more than happy to run around doing her errands. He kills dozens of members of rival caravan companies in her name, and returns to her side with new blood stains on his clothes for a cheek pat and a crooked smile and for the treats she gives him as she leads him to bed. Jacob Frye went somewhere far away back at the warehouse. Now all that's left is Pearl's Boy, and Pearl is his everything; she's the center of his universe.

 

Then Nigel Bumble comes calling, frantic, with news that pushers and chem heads alike are dropping like flies and no one knows why, and little Clara O'Dea is in trouble.


	3. Just because I’m breathing, doesn’t mean I’m alive.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A virus is spreading among the ghouls of the Commonwealth, and chem addicts are dying in droves thanks to tampered product. As for Jacob, well. He doesn't know what he's doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay fair bit of warning for this chapter. It was hinted at in the last one but in this one, Jacob starts to seriously depersonalize from here on out. There is also some fairly graphic violence towards the end.
> 
> This chapter is entirely one big block of angst and pain. Enjoy! =D
> 
> Once again, RebornFromSeas is too incredible for words. I would be lost without them.
> 
> And this chapter is dedicated to my twin, ResidentWitchBitch. She inspired a certain part of the end scene and I love her. =D

“What happened to her?” He asks frantically, bursting through the infirmary doors and bee-lining for Clara's bedside the moment he sees her and for a second, he feels like Jacob again and not just the mercenary, not just Pearl's boy. He sees her lying there and he feels what remains of his heart crack.

 

The little ghoulette is unconscious, her breath coming in weak, wet gasps. Ghouls just  _don't get sick;_ the radiation supposedly kills off all the crap in their systems. He's never once met a Ghoul with even the sniffles. Yet here Clara is, weak and sick and Nigel tells him she's been vomiting and her nose hasn't stopped bleeding.

 

The merc panics 'cause it sounds like a bad trip, but Clara has an unshakable anti-chem stance. He lifts her tiny, radiation-burned hand and cradles it in his own as Greenie looks at him from across the bed. “I don't know. Evie is in their base, asking questions. She isn't the only one, Mr. Frye.” When he jerks his head up to stare at the Synth, Henry nods over his shoulder. He looks around, at all the bodies on gurneys and overflowing onto mattresses on the floor. “Ghouls, mostly. But a few humans. The virus seems to somehow feed on radiation instead of being burned out by it.”

 

The merc shakes his head and stares down at Clara, fighting back his rage. “How the  _fuck_ is that even possible? Is it...” He jerks his gaze up to the Synth's again. “Maybe that F.E.V. stuff?”

 

Henry can only shrug. “Your sister may be able to provide us with more answers.”

 

* * *

 

He doesn't wait for her to return. He's a mercenary, like his father, and mercs don't just sit around with their thumbs up their asses waiting for news. They don't sit around fretting at a little girl's bedside where the demons of inadequacy and incompetence rear their ugly heads in the quiet. They don't sit there and let the whispers in the back of their mind try to convince them that he's somehow at fault.

  
  


He makes Nigel take him around to a few chem head flops he knows of, and it’s not pretty. In all of them there are clear signs of dozens of chem addicts OD'ing recently. At a few, there are fresh bodies. In one they find some poor sap in the throes of death, and the merc knows they don't have the time or resources to save him so he snaps the guy's neck. Nigel looks horrified, but he doesn't say anything.

 

Well, the merc thinks. He's had a long history of disappointing people. And the idealistic young Synth who looked at the twins like some kind of wasteland heroes, like they were the Silver Shroud and The Mistress of Mystery come to life, won't be the last. There's no time to waste now, to explain his reasons to the kid. He'll just have to accept what his idol has done and move on.

 

He orders Nigel to help him (carefully) gather every chem and empty container and syringe to bring back to Henry. The answer to 'What Killed the Chem Head' is nearly always in the chems.

 

“Think that's the last of it, Mr. Frye.”

 

He nods, using his knuckles to push on his chin so he can pop the crick that's forming in his neck from bending over so long. When he spies a tall off-white canister on a nearby table, he walks over to pick it up, cocking his head at the odd insignia stamped on it. Shrugging, he examines it to find the seal broken. Slightly disappointed, he opens the lid and peers inside to find maybe a single swallow of water sloshing in the bottom. The water probably isn't clean anymore, given the seal is broken and the chem heads that flock to these flops aren't the type that tend to be picky about what they put in their body. He's thirsty enough he considers drinking it anyway.

 

“Mr. Frye!” He jams the lid back onto the canister and starts towards the distressed voice. Nigel pokes his head back in and points behind him. “Raiders sir!”

 

Swearing under his breath, the merc sticks the canister hastily into his bag and grabs his shotgun.

 

* * *

 

Evie nurses him back to health in the shack. She tries a few times to convince him to let her take him home but each time Jacob flies into a panic and starts fighting her, so she lets it drop and holds his hand as she flushes his system of all the crap he's poured into his body in his attempt to kill himself. She gives him tiny sips of water and bland, tasteless food to try and avoid upsetting his stomach further. She strokes his hair and sings to him and tells him funny jokes and describes the sunrise and sunset to him. She leaves only once, tears in her eyes as he shrieks for her to come back, to get more supplies.

 

When he finally has the strength to get up, he still has to lean heavily against her to avoid collapsing in the dirt as she walks him around the clearing in front of the shack. He's despondent and jumpy and needy— _weak_ , his father would say—and watches her every move with wide eyes, waiting for her to strike him or leave him. He deserves both, and doesn't understand why she does neither.

 

On the fourth day after she rescues him, he's doing pretty well. He's still largely apathetic and spends most of his time in silence, letting her do all the talking, but he can walk on his own, albeit in a slow, shuffling manner, and handle water and simple, light foods without throwing them back up. She won't let him have any chems, instead insisting that he keep up his regimen of Addictol to ensure its all flushed from his system, and he could hate her for that but it's Evie. He can't hate her, no matter how much he wants to. When she brings up the subject of returning home again later that night, Jacob agrees.

 

At this point he's decided to just not care.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They fight almost constantly now that he's back in Old North Church full time. Evie doesn't approve of his aggressive manner with the other members of the Railroad. She doesn't care for his flippant remarks and casual disdain for order. She's getting tired of the reckless way he approaches their missions and the increasingly worrisome bloodlust he's displaying.

 

He's getting tired of her constantly harping on him to help and then cutting down his ideas. He wants to go back to Pearl. Pearl dismisses his concerns and ideas, same as Evie. However, Pearl's Boy doesn't need to think, he just needs to do and he  _needs_ that right now. He needs it cause when he lies in bed at night, without his usual blanket of chems to dull his mind, he starts to  _think_. He finds himself craving Psycho more and more as the days wear on.

 

The chems he and Nigel found had been tampered with. That happens all the time, though. It's the way they've been tampered with and the side-effects that are most worrisome.

 

People are turning into ghouls.

 

The drug, whatever it is (Henry and Alec are still analyzing the compounds), is a heavily irradiated mixture that, for some reason, is being worked into large batches of chems. It can't be a coincidence or mix-up because it's in every type of chem you can buy from your standard low-level pusher and traces of it are left in nearly every piece of paraphernalia they test. The chem still does what it's advertised to do, but while you're riding your high, the radiation is melting your brain.

 

In every case, the user becomes a ghoul. Whether they go feral or not doesn't matter in the end. So far, in 100% of the cases, the users are dying.

 

This factors heavily into their fights these days.

 

For example: when Henry and Evie are drawing up a crude map of distribution lines for one manufacturer of the tainted Jet that they've been able to trace, the younger twin flops onto the nearby couch and pulls out a fresh inhaler.

 

Evie throws a socket wrench at his head, ignoring the vicious curse he hurls back at her as he dodges out of the way. “Are you out of your Atom-forsaken mind, Jacob?” He stares her down, silent. “People are fucking dying; do you want to join them?” Very slowly, his every pore oozing defiance, he raises the inhaler back to his lips.

 

Evie's on him in a flash, and they crash to the floor in a heap of swinging arms and ugly swearing, wrestling over the inhaler. Henry is standing over them shouting for the pair to stop but they ignore him, hands clawing at each other, aiming for known weak spots before Evie finally rolls them over, straddling her brother's middle and holds the jet high up out of his reach. “Give it back Evie!” He knows he sounds childish and he scrabbles at her arm, trying to snatch back his chem.

 

“I am not going to let you kill yourself for a quick fix!”

 

“Oh, for crying out—Listen, I got it from a guy I trust alright-”

 

She tosses the canister aside and leans down to grab his shoulders, giving him such a hard shake that the back of his skull bounces off the cement. “So did all the others that died you, fool! They trusted their pushers and now they're dead!”

 

He breaks her grip on him and shoves her hard. She topples backwards and he bounces up, making a lunge for where he saw the chem land, only to be met with the sight of Greenie standing there with a distressed look on his face, Jet in hand as he looks between the twins. Both Fryes make a move towards him but Henry angles towards Evie and tosses it into her hand. “Coward.” The younger spits.

 

Henry looks taken aback and opens his mouth to respond but Evie cuts him off. “Shut up, Jacob, he's only trying to help me keep you alive.”

 

The merc jerks his hands in the air at her. “If you're so fucking concerned with my chem use, let me use the fucking equipment to analyze them mysel-”

 

“Absolutely not. We need that equipment and you'll wind up breaking it or-”

 

“Oh,  _fuck you_ , Evie Frye.” He aims a vicious kick at the table, cracking the leg. “What the fuck am I supposed to do then, just sit here and wait for withdrawal to kick me in the jewels?”

 

“You could  _help_ us you nitwit!”

“ _How_? How am I supposed to help when you won't even let me out of the HQ to crush a few skulls?” They're full-out screaming at each other now, and he sees Greenie out of the corner of his eye, watching them warily, probably waiting to jump in to come to his sister's rescue. Irritated by the thought, the merc slams a fist down on the maps scattered across the table. “Give me someone to fucking kill! I'm useless sitting around here, but if you'd just  _tell me who we're after_ , I can toddle off, disembowel them, and be back in time for supper.”

  
  


“You can't just go off and kill every pusher and manufacturer in the 'Wealth, it doesn't work that way!” Evie hollers at him and snatches the maps out from under his fist as if worried he'll damage them. She probably is, because he can't do fuck-all in her opinion, otherwise she wouldn't treat him like a fucking child.

  
  


_But I'm not a child. I'm a fucking mercenary without a contract, without a purpose._

  
  


“Says you. Maybe the chem economy dies down for a while but I assure you Evie, it'll bounce back.”

 

Evie runs both hands through her hair at this, at her limit. “What about  _your_ pushers, Jacob? What if they're on the list?”

 

“Then I deal with them and find new ones!”

 

“No, Jacob!”

 

“Why not?”

 

“'You can't go about blindly cutting off one of the Hydra's heads, for two more will always grow in its place!'” They both freeze, visibly. Evie reddens slightly while the color leeches from her brother's cheeks. His hands ball into fists so tight his stubby, uneven nails bite into his palms, leaving little red crescents. Evie shuffles on her feet, straightening and squaring her shoulders as she looks at her brother, who is breathing heavier now than he had while they fought. Her voice is lower than before when she finally speaks. “It's sound advice.”

 

She doesn't even flinch when  _Jacob,_ not the merc, not Pearl's Boy, but Jacob (because only Jacob feels this much), spins and upends the entire table, smashing it into the wall before storming from the room.

 

* * *

 

“Idiot boy!” His father snaps, slapping the back of his head hard enough to knock the eight year old forward a few steps. “You're not thinking on your feet. Go again.”

 

Trying not to let the hot tears pricking the corners of his eyes fall, Jacob wipes the blood from under his nose and gets back to his feet, bringing his tiny fists up in front of him as his father begins to circle, looming over Jacob. He strikes out and Jacob who throws up a thin arm to deflect him. He barely has a moment to feel proud of himself before Ethan's fist plows into the side of his face, causing stars to erupt before his eyes as he's knocked off his feet and lands in the dirt some ways away. He hears Ethan cursing at him: hears him coming closer and tries to scramble to his feet, to get away, but Ethan reaches him and hauls him to his feet by the back of his padded leather armor, shaking him roughly.

 

“Dammit, boy! When you fight with no heart, you're dead already. Were you fighting with your heart?”

 

Jacob coughs on the blood in his mouth, trying not to whimper. Ethan hates it when he whimpers. “I'm sorry-”

 

“That's not what I asked!” Ethan drags him closer until their almost nose-to-nose, spit flecking Jacob's face as he shouts at the terrified young child. “How many times do I have to beat it into you, boy, before you learn-”

 

There's a deafening  _CRASH_ off to the side and both turn to find Evie standing before the weapons racks, looking horrified. She's knocked two entire shelves over somehow, and their contents are spilled across the dusty floor. “I, I'm sorry, Sir. I was practicing the manuever you showed me-”

 

“Shut it!” Ethan shoves his son away from him and strides towards his daughter, gripping her upper arm with a force that causes her to cry out. “You ungrateful little bastards are wearing on my last nerve! I should have left you in that hole to rot instead of bringing you here to make something of your worthless lives.” He throws Evie from him with the same disgust he normally reserves for Jacob. “Both of you get the fuck out of my sight, I'm tired of you.”

 

Evie is already rushing to her brother's side, swiping at his nose before helping him to his feet and dragging him out of the arena. They run and run and run until their little legs burn from the effort and Jacob is spluttering from all the blood in his mouth and nose. They collapse in their secret place, well beyond the walls, and Evie immediately pries up the loose floorboard to retrieve their secret stash.

 

Jacob, tears sliding freely down his face now, fixes her with a miserable look. “Why dib you do dat?”

 

“I don't like when he hits you. Here, lean forward.” She pushes on the pack of his head, guiding him to sit on a cinder block propped next to the wall while pushing his head down.

 

“We wheh dwaining, Ebie.” He wants to sniffle but by now he knows that's a bad idea, so he knuckles at the tears in his eyes as blood puddles beneath him on the floor, adding yet another rust-colored stain to the dozens he's already made in here.

 

Evie frowns as she snaps the capsule in the cold pack she had stolen from the clinic months ago, and shakes the bag. The chemicals spread and become cold within seconds, and she wraps it in a relatively clean rag before pressing it into her brother's hand. “No, you weren't. He was hitting you, and I don't like it.”

 

“One ob dese days, he'sth nod going do bewieve you.” He warns, lifting the cold pack to his nose and hissing at the contact.

 

Evie only shrugs, using the corner of the rag to dab at a trickle of blood heading towards his mouth. She looks at her miserable brother, his eyes clouded with pain and wraps her tiny fingers around his. “You don't need to take all his punches.”

 

“Oh, shub up.”

 

“I'm serious, Jacob.” She leans forward, ignoring the blood that leaks from behind the rag and drips onto her shoulder as she wraps her arms around his middle. “I'd take it. For you. I would take all his punches for you, you're my brother.” She squeezes him, ignoring the sound of protest he makes. “I love you, brother. I love you, I love you and I don't want to watch him hurt you.”

 

“I dob wan' do see him hurb you eider.” He snaps, or as much as he can with his nose still bleeding and his bitten tongue swollen in his mouth. “Ib he sdarded hiddin' you doo-”

 

Evie suddenly releases him and leans back, her eyes lighting up. “Jacob... Jacob, why don't we... kill him?”

 

He looks at her in shock, wondering if that last punch damaged his ears instead of just his face. “Ebie don' dalk cwazy-”

 

“I'm not I'm not.” She wiggles and scoots over so that she's sitting beside his cinder and leans against him, wrapping both her arms around one of his and hugging it tight. “We could do it. No one would ever think we would, no one would see or know. We could sneak into his room, we could use those knives of his to stab him in the neck, and then we could run away!”

 

“Where woub we go, Ebie?”

 

“I don't know, but we'd figure it out-”

 

“Ebie stob.” When she starts to protest he drops the cold back and slips off the cinder block to be on her level as he wraps his free arm around her shoulder. It's an awkward angle and he winds up smearing blood across her shoulder and neck, but he hugs her to him tight. “Ebie... we can'. You d'ow we can'.”

 

Evie sighs, and releases his arm so she can wrap her arms around his back and fist her hands tightly in his shirt, both of them wishing for nothing more in that moment than for the other to be safe.

 

* * *

 

He finds himself sitting by little Clara's bedside, feet propped up on a medical cart while he leans his cheek into his fist, simply watching her struggle to breathe. He doesn't know what else to do. He feels like giving up. Thankfully, he's too numb to care at this point.

 

She's too far gone to respond when he talks to her. Even when, embarrassed and furtively checking his surroundings to make sure no one was around to hear, he'd read to her from an Unstoppables comic he'd found lying around, making stupid little jokes and asides in an attempt to get her to snark back at him. He's given up on that now, though, 'cause the only response is her wet, ragged breathing and he's tired of feeling like he's beating his head against the wall and screaming into the void.

 

He just doesn't know what else to do.

 

When Greenie comes in hours after his fight with Evie, the merc feels his hackles raise as he slides a cold, contemptuous look his way. The Synth is silent, his eyes never straying towards the only other conscious person in the room as he heads towards Clara's bedside, fiddling with the monitors a moment before turning to lean over her bed, checking her vitals.

 

The merc scowls at him. “If Evie sent you in here to talk some sense into me, Greenie, then you can just go ahead and shove it right up your-”

 

“I came to check on my patients, Mr. Frye.” He replies, voice calm and low. The merc scowls again, crossing his arms over his chest and dropping his feet to the ground with a flop. They are quiet for nearly a full minute, with Henry examining the young ghoulette and the younger Frye glaring hatefully at him from the other side of the bed before the Synth looks up, offering small smile. “Can I help you, Mr. Frye?”

 

“No.” He spits. “You're helping my sister enough for the both of us.”

 

Henry straightens, blinking those calm yet oh-so-unsettling eyes. “I'm afraid I do not understand.”

 

The merc scoffs, his glare replaced by a nasty smirk. “Trouble computing that one, Greenie?”

 

“No.” The handsome Synth gives the monitors one last cursory glance before stepping away from the bedside. “What I do not understand, Mr. Frye, is whether your problem with me stems from my relationship with Miss Frye or the fact that I am a Synth.”

 

He tenses at that, his mouth firming into a line. “I wouldn't be working with the Railroad if I had a problem with Synths.”

 

“What I mean to say is,” Henry offers him what's probably meant to be a kind smile, but it just comes across as condescending to the merc as he turns in his seat to follow as Henry moves to another bed, another patient. “Do you take issue with your sister being friendly with a Synth specifically?”

 

The merc cracks his knuckles and turns resolutely back to Clara. “I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.”

 

Henry only hums in response.

 

* * *

 

The Railroad has set Evie up with a nice sleeping space in one of their (many) empty spaces designated as personal quarters. Since Jacob is rarely at the HQ, he makes due with sleeping on his bedroll on her floor.

 

Actually, it reminds him of their childhood. It reminds him of the bunkbeds they had as children, and how their nana would tut at them and tell them to stop whisper-giggling to each other and go to sleep. It reminds him of nights spent huddled in her bed while she played with his hair and told him that things would be alright and that they would get away from Ethan one day. It reminds him of nights not so long ago when he'd drag his bedroll close to hers or sleep on the floor next to her bed so he could reach up and hold her hand after one of his nightmares left him feeling like a child again. Now he spreads out against the far wall, his facing away from her bed despite the paranoia of not having something solid at his back, because he knows she'll be in to go to sleep soon and frankly, he's too exhausted to face her.

 

He struggles not to whip around at the sound of the door opening but he knows by the sounds of the footfalls that it’s her. She pauses, undoubtedly watching him for some sign of acknowledgment but he doesn't indulge her. She sighs heavily and moves to the bed, divesting herself of her armor and boots on the way, hanging her effects on the rack at the end of her bed or laying them on the shelf. She moves about, doing her personal nightly routine, until she sits with a loud creak on the edge of her mattress. “I know you're awake, stop acting like a child.”

 

“Bite me.” He mumbles.

 

“We need to talk.”

 

“I'm not apologizing.”

 

Evie sighs. They're both quiet for a moment before Evie slides off the mattress and comes to sit beside him on the bedroll, leaning against his back. “I shouldn't have quoted father at you.” She won't apologize for it, though. They both know that, so again, the younger Frye keeps quiet. “Do you want to hear about what we've learned?”

 

“About?”

 

“The chems.” He tenses behind her and after a second starts to roll over, so she moves out of his way and goes back to sitting on the bed. “It wasn't easy, but we've been able to track certain batches of the tainted ones back through their pushers, then through the dealers, and we've managed to find one distributor they all have in common.”

 

“How the hell'd you manage that?”

 

Evie gives him a tight, dry smirk. “Research, investigation, which you would-” He narrows his eyes and she looks like she's about to go on for a moment before she shakes her head. “The point is, we have a name. The only problem is we don't have the place.”

 

“What's the name?”

 

“Richard Owens.” She blinks at the predatory grin that crosses her brother's face. “Friend of yours?”

 

“No.” He chuckles darkly before flopping back down, crossing his hands beneath his head and closing his eyes. “But I know someone who is.”

 

* * *

 

He's been staking out the Combat Zone for two days now.

 

He's barely moved in that time, except to relieve himself and run a quick perimeter check twice. He sleeps upright against a wall and only for a few hours at a time. He has a few booby traps set around this spot, hidden in the rubble, but they won't stop a clever scavver looking for an easy mark. So he sleeps light with his shotgun in his lap and during the active part of the day stares at the theater a few blocks away through a pair of pre-war binocs.

 

The only thing keeping him from tearing out his hair right now is the Med-X that Alec supplied him with after assuring the merc that it was safe. He only takes enough to keep the edge off as he sits there, waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting and trying to not go mad from it. It's all part of being a trained killer for hire, a bloody fucking mercenary. An assassin who kills for caps. This is the worst part of the job, he thinks, the waiting. Evie is much better suited for it than he is, but Evie's following up another lead with Greenie in tow.

 

He tries not to dwell on that too much.

 

He's let his facial hair grow out in the last couple weeks, having been too... distracted to trim it. With a pair of goggles though, it makes for an efficient disguise. He adds a headscarf and cap scavenged from some BoS scribe's corpse a few weeks ago and calls it good. The blade he can't hide all that well but he figures if he keeps it out of side that'll do.

 

Finally, on the night of the second day, he spots his mark entering the theater.

 

He exits the building, dismantling his traps along the way and taking the stairs down two at a time until he reaches the ground floor and peers out into the street, doing a quick sweep before shouldering his rucksack more securely and darting down the busted-up cement until he reaches the entrance of the theater.

 

The familiar reek inside is almost welcome. Then, after a moment, it sours when he recalls the first time he set foot in here.

 

_Don't let personal feelings compromise the mission._

 

The words make him blanch and he clutches reflexively on his shotgun before he shakes his head to clear it. The merc schools his face into a stony, impassive expression and slips into the theater main. He can do this. He's a trained murderer on a mission. He's done this countless times before and he'll do it countless more until the day he dies.

 

Seamus barely looks up from the stage as he enters, greeting him with a grunt before turning back to the match. Jacob hardly looks at the combatants as he hands Seamus the entry fee and holsters the shotgun over his shoulder. It won't be comfortable to sit back with it on but he won't be sitting long and he'll need his hands free. He makes a show of heading down to the bar and leaning casually against it as he orders some of whatever the meat they're currently grilling is. He thinks it might be Bloatfly but at this point he doesn't care. He's fucking hungry after two days of survival rations, he wants meat, and it gives the merc a chance to scout the theater without appearing to do so. He tosses the barkeep a few caps for some of the greasy chunks speared on a long splinter of wood and heads up into the balcony.

 

His mark is sitting about halfway up the balcony with a couple raiders utterly blissed out beside him. Obviously they were engaged in a deal. He hopes the chems were clean, 'cause he's not here to clean up a few dead ghouls. The merc swaggers his way up a few rows behind them and kicks his feet up, looking for all the world like he's relaxing back to watch the end of the match. And even though his eyes appear to be on the cage, he doesn't see anything happening below the balcony because he's focused on the bald-headed man in front of him. He waits for the raiders to murmur to him and hand over a few caps before dragging each other up and slumping off. The merc licks the grease off his fingers as he finishes his kebabs and watches, waiting. His man appears to be content to sit out the rest of the show so, grinning, the merc stretches his arms over his head, popping the joints in his back and tossing the kebab sticks aside before standing and climbing over the backs of chairs until he comes up behind his mark. “Hey, hey buddy.” He adopts an eager, raspy voice, contracting the muscles in his arms and chest to make himself shake and twitch slightly as he leans closer while the mark jerks and turns, eyeing him with suspicion. The mark obviously just sees him as another jonesing junkie and relaxes, sneering at the man behind him.  _Always keep things simple on the job, and close to the truth is the most simple you can be._ He wishes his fucking father would stay out of his head but when he's on the job, when he's the mercenary on the job, out for blood, Ethan Frye's sagely advice is an unfortunately catchy tune caught in the back of his skull with the other whispers. “Saw you helped those two guys out. Help a guy out, huh buddy?”

 

The man studies him for a moment before a cold glint comes into his eyes. He shifts back and slips a hand into his coat. “Got caps, kid?”

 

“Yeah, yeah I got caps. Got somethin' else too.” The blade on his wrist snicks out and jams into the man's back in the space between his chair and the next. The dealer freezes, opening his mouth to shout but the merc digs it in a little harder. “I'd think twice Lancer.” His voice is cool and all business now, from junkie to merc in 0.5. “Topping's a friend, you really think he's gonna wet his pants if I stick you here? He'll just turn it into a sideshow. Now we're gonna get up,” He leans closer, hissing in the man's ear. “And we're gonna walk down to Bobby's office nice and slow, ya dig?” He angles his blade, urging the man to stand up. Silently, gnashing his teeth, his mark obeys.

 

“Are you going to kill me?” He asks under his breath.

 

The merc grins. “That's entirely up to you.” He walks his mark to the end of the row, the tip of his blade pressing into his back while his free hand grips the man's arm, keeping him close. Once he can step close to the man without the barrier of chairs in the way, he adjusts their position, securing the man in his grip. They meander down the stairs and ramp, sticking close to the wall. The match has ended, and just as Topping is bounding into his office to make preparations for the next one, they turn down the last aisle.

 

So far, so good.

 

He presses his blade harder against his mark again, prompting him to reach out and open the door when they reach it. Topping, looking like a fucking clown (albeit an attractive one) in his colorful, outrageous clothing looks up and unholsters his pistol reflexively. “Mr. Lancer? Mr.--?”

 

Right. His disguise. “Evening Topping!” The merc greets him cheerfully, kicking the door shut behind them. “Had some business to tend to and I was wondering if we might use your office for a bit of privacy.” His mark tenses and drags his feet as they walk closer to Robert's desk.

 

The colorful man frowns, confusion and anxiety etched into his handsome young face. He obviously recognizes the voice though because he does relax some before he speaks. “What kind of business, Frye?”

 

The merc just smiles pleasantly and jams his boot into the back of his mark's knee, knocking it out from under the man and forcing him down into a kneeling position. His grip moves to the man's hair, grabbing a fistful of it while his blade comes to a rest at the point where the spine meets the skull. The man squawks in fear and shock but doesn't struggle, so the merc turns another pleasant grin on the now scowling Topping. “Just need to have a chat.”

 

“Frye that's against the fucking rules and you know it. Don't make me call Seamus in here,” He tacks on, almost pleading. He looks like a kicked puppy and the merc chuckles. “I like you. Don't know why but I know I'd be upset if my man had to break your arms.”

 

“Come on, brother. Hundred-fifty.” He waggles his brows at Topping. “It's in my pocket. Can't get it now but if you really wanted to check-”

 

The other man scowls at him. “Lancer has been a loyal patron of this establishment-”

 

“Fuck's sake, Topping, just call your-”

 

The merc moves his blade in a flash, leaning down and pressing it sharply against the man's jugular. When he shuts up he turns his head to look at Topping again. “Okay okay. I don't have time to negotiate today. I've got three hundred caps, plus I'll throw in whatever he's got on him.” Topping just stares at him for a moment, arms across his chest. The merc lets out a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. “And... I'll come fight in the Cage for you.”

 

“My, what a romantic.”

 

He can't respond for a moment, too busy restraining his now struggling target. When he has Lancer pinned to the ground, shouting obscenities into the carpet while the merc kneels on his back, he cracks his neck and glances at Topping. “Yeah yeah, I'm a real fucking sweetheart. We got a deal?”

 

“Topping!” Lancer shouts from where he's smashed into the carpet. “We've done business for years, you're gonna let this little fucking upstart ruin that? When this gets back to Starrick-”

 

Topping scoffs at that. “Please, don't be dramatic. If I thought you meant that much to Starrick in the first place-”

 

The merc clears his throat. “We got a deal or no, Topping?”

 

The colorful man stares at him, hard, for a long moment. Finally he lets out a long-winded sigh, and Lancer really starts thrashing. “I see nothing, I know nothing, and if you flake out on me  _so help me Atom-_ ”

 

“Relax, Bobby.” He ignores the middle finger shot his way as Topping leaves the office, slamming the door behind him, and goes back to the task at hand. “Now, Mr. Lancer, about your supplier-”

 

* * *

 

Jacob returns to the compound a different person entirely.

 

He's meeker, soft-spoken (when he speaks at all), and seems to function purely on orders. He spends long hours staring blankly ahead and has to be constantly reminded by Evie to eat, sleep, and bathe. However, he's never been so responsive in training and to his father's orders. He doesn't talk back, doesn't take the chems, doesn't shirk his duties to read comic books and go into the nearby settlements to fuck around with his 'friends'.

 

Ethan sees it as an improvement, and is pleased that his lesson was received so favorably.

 

Evie grows concerned that the recent experience damaged her brother's brain. She coaxes him into the medbay multiple times over the following weeks for testing. He lies on the table, docile and disinterested as the docs run their tests and hook him up to machines he doesn't care to understand. He doesn't listen to the results, answers simply when they ask him questions, and hardly flinches when they draw his blood each time.

 

He sits. He watches. He thinks.

 

It takes him nearly two months to stop thinking. When he's done, he gets up from where Evie's parked him on his own for the first time since before the shed incident, and walks out of the compound, heading towards the nearest settlement.

 

He leaves a note where Evie will find it.  _“Remember when we were 8?”_

 

* * *

 

He slaps his hands against his thighs a few times then brushes them together as he exits Topping's office and pulls the door closed behind him. Robert is leaning against the wall next to the door, watching him quizzically. The merc smirks and holds his hands wide in question. “I didn't hear any sounds of distress.” Topping says carefully. The merc glances towards the stage, seeing one of Robert's lackies up there in his place, shouting out commentary as the combatants beat each other senseless. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder at the spectacle, and Robert sighs. “I told Tommy to take over; I was concerned about what was happening in my office.”

 

The merc looks at him, perplexed. “I was only having a chat with that nice chem dealer. Wanted to buy my junk in peace. He left out your back door.”

 

Topping nearly topples at that. “I don't... I don't have a back door?”

 

“Sure you do!” He laughs, slapping a hand against Robert's shoulder. “You remember. Anyway, thanks for that, I was running a bit low and I hate doing my business in the open.” When Topping only continues to stare at him, looking slightly like he's in pain (or constipated, the merc thinks), he sighs. “Do you really want to know?”

 

The colorful man struggles with that for a second. He makes an aggravated sort of sound and scrubs at his cheek fretfully. “Right, back door. Well.” He holds his hand out, wiggling his fingers expectantly and Jacob drops two fat sacks of caps in his hand. Topping weighs them considerately before stuffing them into hidden pockets deep in his coat. “And...?”

 

The merc jerks a thumb over his shoulder at the door, and they begin to walk back up the aisle. “Oh yeah, before he toddled off, he left you some gifts on your desk.”

 

“Any of those gifts of the getting-fucked-up-variety?” The merc patted jacket, and the bag of goodies hidden in an inner pocket. Topping scowled. “You said I could have everything.”

 

“He was selling the tainted stuff, Bobby.” He patted the colorful man's shoulder sympathetically. “He's working with one of the main distributors.”

 

“Well I'll be fucked by a Deathclaw.”

 

“Listen, I'm not one to judge but-” They both chuckle at that, but the sound is lost in the cheers of the audience as the fighters on stage bludgeon one another. “Anyway, thanks for letting me borrow your office.”

 

“No problem. You going back to Wynert, now?”

 

Jacob wonders, briefly, if the theater is coming down around him. He feels a tremor go through his entire form and for a moment he's wondering if he's suffocating because his chest hurts and he can't breathe. Then he realizes he's holding his breath and he exhales and shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”

 

Topping's looking at him oddly, but the merc is wearing a deadpan expression now. “Ah... well he's here and I just... you two have been coming in together an awful lot the past couple months.”

 

There's silence between them for a moment as his brain tries to process several things at once. That Ned's here, that Topping noticed them spending time together, that Ned is within this very building, that someone somehow  _expected_ them to be together and was surprised when they weren't, that he's been here for nearly an hour (that interrogation, ah, chem sale took a while) and the entire time he was closer to Ned than he had been in... (he tries to calculate it in his head but he's been so fucked up lately that the days blur together) since the warehouse without even knowing it. He tries to process all the emotions currently fighting for dominance in his crowded skull, all straining to be heard over those angry little whispers. He blinks rapidly and crosses his arms over his chest, opening his mouth to snap at Topping to mind his damn business when a fist plows into it.

 

He tastes blood and feels his teeth cut through his bottom lip and thinks maybe a few of his teeth have cracked if not outright broken. He doesn't have time to respond before there are hands around his throat, shoving him into the storage closet that sits behind Seamus's usual post. He hears Topping shout for the bodyguard in question and the hands around his throat suddenly disappear. “Walk away, Topping.”

 

_Collin._

 

The merc spits out a mouthful of blood and touches a hand to the split in his bottom lip, wincing, as he glares at his attacker. Ned's grim-faced shadow is standing between him and the door, his own eyes filled with absolute loathing as he stares Jacob down. Seamus is standing behind him, cracking his knuckles and the merc can see Topping bouncing from one foot to the other just behind him. “There are fucking rules here!” He hisses, his words lost to the theater at large by the cheers and jeers issued by the audience for whatever happened on the stage. Topping waves his arms dramatically over his head. “Rules, Mr. Jones! Put in place to prevent my extremely brutish and violent clinetle from breaking out into full-scale riots on the regular.”

 

Collin's hand slides into his coat, and he produces a sack of caps about the same size that the merc had bribed Topping with. He throws them over his shoulder to Seamus, never taking his eyes off Jacob. “Sorry Topping, Frye and I have some business to attend.”

 

Topping lets out a thin almost-scream at that and tears at the hair escaping from under his stupid tophat. “Business!  _Business_! This is  _my_ place of business! This place of business is not a place for you thrice-damn guns for hire to come in and do your  _own_  business, that's not the way I operate!” He babbles, now stamping his feet rather like a child. “You can't just come in here with your caps on display-”

 

Jacob swipes a hand under his nose and straightens, squaring his shoulders. “Topping. Take a walk. I'll match whatever he's got there.”

 

The colorful man makes that sound again and tears at his hair in frustration. “Fine! Beat each other to hell for all I care but keep it quiet or I'm gonna make you do it in the Cage so I can sell tickets.”

 

The two men wait for Topping to flounce away, mumbling under his breath and for Seamus to close the door. Then they wait longer, silent, seizing each other up.

 

“You wanted a kiss hello I'd have preferred your pretty mouth.” The merc sneers.

 

The fire in Collin's eyes burns ever brighter and he clenches his fists. “Oh I'll give you a kiss you smug son of a bitch. I should kill you.”

 

The merc grins, his mouth bloody and torn by the well-timed punch, and the effect is rather gruesome. It makes him look dangerous and slightly manic, in direct opposition to how his insides seemed to have liquefied. Inside he feels weak and shaky and he just wants to lay down somewhere quiet and warm with a few inhalers of Jet. “You could try, but then your boss would be out a man.”

 

Collin bares his teeth. “You're a piece of work, you know that?”

 

“And you're a third-rate bitch to a scrawny little-” He sees the fist coming and his instincts scream for him to block, to fight back.

 

Instead he lets it plow into his nose, relishes the extraordinary flash of pain as he reels to the side, bent over as the blood pours from his face and splatters onto the filthy ground. “Shut your fucking mouth you worthless piece of shit, or I'm gonna cut out your fucking tongue.”

 

The merc groans, screwing his face up in pain as he straightens again, glaring daggers into the other man. He swipes his hand under his nose and grits his teeth before gripping it and shifting it back into place. He grunts and tries to mop the blood up, and is grateful that when he speaks it’s with only a slight change to his voice. “You know what I never really understood?” He asks calmly, as if he hadn't just been punched in the face, twice. “You. You confuse the shit out of me. I've never understood what it is with you two. Why a guy like you, a smart, tough-looking bastard like you, plays nanny to that mouthy little bastard. Why you're always hovering over him like a Brahmin heifer hovers over her calves. Why is that, Collin? Why do you stick around and protect the little pain in the ass when you could take the company for yourself? Is the concept of survival of the fittest just wasted on you?” His voice has taken on a slightly hysterical edge and he's shouting now, he knows it, but Collin just continues to stare at him. “Did I really hurt his stupid feelings that much? Is he a fucking child? I was only stating fact, not my fault the delicate little prick can't handle it. The twiggy little bastard can't even come in here and face me down, nah, too fragile for that. He's gotta send you, right? Gotta send Mama Hen Collin to come fight the big nasty merc that hurt his puny little feelings-”

 

“You done?” Collin snaps.

 

The merc considers that for a moment, making a big show of it before he suddenly hawks up a mouthful of blood and saliva and spits into the body guard's face. “Now I'm done.”

 

Collin's on top of him before he can blink, hands fisting in his jacket. He snaps his head forward, the hardest part of his skull meeting with the center of the merc's face, causing fresh gore to erupt from his mouth and nose. The bodyguard lets him crumble into a heap at his feet before aiming a series of short, brutal kicks to his ribs before stomping squarely on the merc's wrist. There's a loud  _SNAP_ that he feels more than hears and then Collin is straddling his chest, hands in his hair, dragging his head up only to smash it back down on the ground. He does it again, and then a third time before he bitch-slaps the merc so hard he worries his jaw might have been dislocated.

 

Breathing hard from the exertion, Collin stands. He shakes out his bloody knuckles as the merc rolls onto his side with a pitiful groan, curling up defensively. The bodyguard reaches into his pocket as he leans back against a shelf and pulls out a cigarette and lighter. As he lights the smoke and brings it to his lips, he ignores the wet, gasping breaths of the other man. He takes a drag and blows the smoke into the air, finally tearing his gaze away from the merc to stare at the opposite wall. “I'm not gonna beat your face in if you're gonna just lie there and take it, you piece of garbage.”

 

“Kiss my ass.” The merc groans, breathless from the exquisite pain.

 

Collin taps the ash off the end of his cigarette over the merc's back. “You deserve to die, Frye.” He says it without emotion, just puts it out there, short and simple. Jacob curls up a little tighter on the ground. “You deserve a slow, painful death. You are less than worthless.” The tone and volume of his voice never changes. He's merely stating fact. He could be commenting on the mild weather.

 

“Go to hell, you ugly son of a bitch.”

 

Collin blows another ring of smoke. “I imagine you and I will see each other there, one day. We're not good people. If there's an afterlife, we're meant for the pit.” The merc lifts his unbroken hand to his jaw, gingerly shifting it back and forth in a desperate attempt to alleviate the pain. Collin silently sucks on his cigarette while the merc groans and rocks on the ground at his feet. “I have my reasons for the way I am, same as I'm sure you've got your reasons for the way you are. Unfortunately, I'm finding that our reasons have come into conflict with each other.”

 

“Aren't you just a-” He grits his teeth and trails off, gnashing his teeth as he struggles with the word.

 

Over him, Collin chuckles. “Did I short-circuit whatever minuscule amount of brains the chems didn't already burn out, Frye?”

 

“Shut up.”

 

The bodyguard chuckles again, the sound dark and cruel. “You're pathetic.”

 

The merc painfully shifts up into a sitting position, blood covering the lower half of his face which is already bruising spectacularly. “No. That weak little piece of shit I stupidly risked my neck for is. I should have left the fucker in that cage.”  _Do it. Do it, I know you want to._

 

He's almost relieved when the boot connects with his chest. It knocks the breath from him and he thinks it might have broken something despite the light armor he's wearing. He slams back to the ground, blacking out for a moment before the pain brings him rushing back to the surface. Collin stands over him, his expression blank, his tone conversational. “You are an inexcusable stain on the shit hole that is the world. Nobody wants you, and nobody would shed a tear if you disappeared and were never heard from again.” Jacob bites his lip so hard it splits again and floods his mouth with fresh blood. “You are worth even less than Bloatfly vomit, Frye.” Jacob clenches his hands into fists at his sides. “And I feel truly bad for your poor sister, having to put up with her sniveling, stupid, chem-addict, piece of shit brother.” Jacob doesn't sob, but he feels it building in the back of his throat. “You're even less than nothing, and if you ever bother Mr. Wynert with your existence again, I will kill you. I will kill you in the slowest, most agonizing way I can think of, and right before you die, I'll give you this little pep-talk again. Just so there are no misunderstandings.” He squats down and grabs a handful of the merc's hair, yanking his head up and forcing the injured man to look at him. “Now get the fuck up, stop embarrassing yourself.”

 

 _Breathe. In, out. In, out. In, out. Don't cry, just breathe. In._  He draws in a shaky breath as Collin releases him and rolls slowly onto all fours, pushing himself up.  _Out._  He gets to his feet with Collin standing and moving back to give him room, and starts to wipe the blood from his face as gently as he can. He snags a rag from the nearest shelf and mops up what he can, then presses it to his bleeding face. Not much else he can do.

 

“We clear, Mr. Frye?” Collin asks him quietly.  _Breathe. In. Out._  He feels close to shattering but he lets Jacob fade and embraces the merc. Jacob feels; the merc does not. The merc focuses on a mission and gets shit done, and right now his mission is to walk out of here and make it back to... make it anywhere else without falling apart. Either by Jacob's own hands or by the lurking dangers in the city. He rolls his shoulders and cradles his broken wrist against his aching chest, turning to brush past Collin and leave. The bodyguard's arm snaps out to block his path though. “We clear?”

 

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

 

Collin cocks his head at the larger man, considering him for a second before his hand drops back to his side, curling into a fist. If there wasn't blood leaking into his eyes in this moment, the merc might have seen the move coming. As it is, he thinks Collin is letting him pass, so his groin is unguarded when the bodyguard takes a swing.

 

He crumbles, letting out a sharp cry of pain and shock as he goes down to his knees. Tears spring to his eyes as he retches violently at his attacker's feet, curling in on himself as the greasy hunks of mystery meat make their way back up to splatter over the floor.

 

He cups himself with his broken hand and uses the other to brace himself on the floor, his arm trembling from the pain as he hawks up all the saliva and bile pooling in his mouth to spit onto the floor, wheezing heavily. His head is swimming and the whispers in the back of his head are getting louder as he kneels there, trying to breathe through the pain. After a minute, the body guard leans down and puts his smoke out against the merc's padded shoulder, pressing harder when the man gasps and tries to jerk away. “We clear?”

 

If he speaks now, he'll snap. He can feel it, knows its coming. So instead he jerks his head twice in a nod, swaying when it makes his head swim and his vision darken. The other man leans down and hooks a hand around the merc's elbow, helping him stand. There's nothing considerate or remorseful in the action, and the merc knows it. There is no emotion in the action: Collin is taking out the trash, to use a pre-war idiom. This is a dismissal. The merc gains his shaky footing and wipes his mouth clean with his sleeve as he steps over the puddle of vomit. _Bobby's not gonna be pleased with that..._

 

He steps out of the closet, wondering which poor bastard is gonna have to clean it up (although given the pungent aroma of the theater and the numerous stains, the answer is probably whoever slips in it first), and nearly runs smack into Ned.

 

Fate must be one cold, heartless bitch, he thinks, and she must have it out for him.

 

The small man stares up at him with rapidly increasing shock as he takes in all the injuries done to his face. Ned starts to pale, his eyes darkening and the merc can almost  _see_ the other man replay the scene at the warehouse in his mind.

 

Jacob wants to speak. Wants to reach out and pull Ned against him and bury his face in Ned's hair to cry. He wants to fall to his knees in front of the other man and beg forgiveness until his voice is hoarse even though he knows no amount of apologizing will ever be enough, and he doesn't give a damn if the whole Combat Zone audience watches. He wants to hold Ned's hand, he wants to kiss the end of his oddly adorable little nose. He wants to ignore the presence radiating pure hatred behind him and just stand there and  _look_ at Ned.

 

He feels the cracks start to spiderweb across his resolve. Maybe if he does reach out for Ned, Collin will finish the job. Seems like that would be a good way to go, considering all his other options. Jacob stands there, swaying slightly, taking in the whole package of thoughts and feelings and just the presence of the trader. It takes every shred of control he has to tear his eyes away from the Ned and shuffle towards the door, every movement causing fresh agony in his bruised and cracked ribs.

 

 


	4. Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jacob's injured (again) and looks for a friend to help him. He wakes up from a disturbing nightmare, and then he meets a crochety old ghoul and they blow stuff up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RebornFromSeas have I told you enough how wonderful you are for beta’ing this for me? Because you’re amazing and I want everyone to know it.
> 
> Anyway, this chapter is 80% angst, 15% action, and 5% nonsense acting as a bridge to the next chapter.
> 
> I am so tremendously sorry for the long wait! I have so many projects right now on top of trying to find a job that I just. It’s been difficult. And I meant to upload early today but I became wrapped up in real life happenings.
> 
> Unfortunately the next update will also be late. It will be posted on February 21st instead of on the 14th. I’m going to try and have some Wye smut up for Valentine’s though so look out for that.
> 
> content warning: serious injury, internalized self hatred abound, disturbing nightmare sequence, graphic depictions of violence and death

Every inch of him aches.

 

That sour-faced bastard has a hell of a punch. The merc thinks briefly that even if he had been trying to defend himself, he may have had a hard time of it. Collin's not as bulky or broad as he is but he's fast as a snake and brutal.

 

Limping his broken way through the ruins is going to be a fucking nightmare, and he shudders at the prospect of schlepping all the way back to Old North Church. He'd have to go through heavy Super Mutant territory and in his current state he's not the least bit interested in having a sprinting match with one of those rabid bastards. Normally he'd come out of the Combat Zone, head to the end of the street, and sneak up through the Commons but if there was a day he was interested in finding out if the rumors of the mad old 'bird' that inhabits Swan's Pond are true, this is not it. So he travels east for a considerable distance before turning north, and turning his slowly drifting attention to the matter of figuring out where to go in his current state.

 

Jacob wants to curl up in a sheltered corner somewhere and not care what comes. The merc grits his teeth and forces his body to keep putting one foot in front of the other, taking himself on a vague, roundabout sort of course heading North. He has to stop though after only a few blocks, collapsing against the side of a building as he lets out a shaky breath. His ribs and chest are a fucking mess and he has to breathe through his mouth because of his broken nose. His eyes are swollen and painful and he has to fight to keep them open, particularly the right. He's easy pickings right now, he knows it. Still, he won't go back.

 

He lets his rucksack slide off one shoulder, cringing at the shift in weight. He reaches inside to where he normally keeps his water and his hands find nothing but a slightly crumbled canister. Groaning, the merc remembers he'd finished his last full bottle of purified stuff a few hours ago. Resigned, he pulls out the bottle he remembers taking from the chem flop, hardly glancing at the odd label before twisting off the cap and tilting his head back to pour it directly down his throat, trying not to taste it. It only works so well and he grimaces at the slightly bitter, ugly taste and the way it makes his stomach gurgle. His head spins and for a moment he's lost in a fog, staring blindly up at the street sign still hanging over the intersection by a single rusty bolt.

 

It takes him a long time for the words on the sign to click in recognition.

 

He groans. Debates briefly with himself on what to do. And after a while he decides he has no choice.

 

-

 

By the time he reaches the end of the directions in his brain his thoughts are sluggish and he's wondering how he made it this far without running into raiders or Muties. He wonders briefly if he's even going the right way—Collin gave him a few fierce knocks after all. He could be completely lost without knowing—then he spots a familiar key marked in bright white spray paint on a nearby wall.

 

Sighing heavily he drags himself the last few yard and slumps against the wall next to the door of a pre-war pharmacy. He bangs his fist against it, each thump weaker than the last before he lets out a long, aggravated sigh when there's no answer. He flicks the blade on his wrist out and leans down, jiggling it into the lock with a bored expression on his face. When it clicks free he kicks the door open and steps out of the way just in time for two shotgun blasts to ring out and a small, controlled explosion to go off just inside the door.

 

When silence reigns he ducks his head in and peers around.

 

The hallway is empty save for the smoking black crater a couple feet from the door, a few guns mounted on the walls, and a strange-looking device that confirms his suspicions.

 

“Aleck it's Jacob Frye.” He calls out. “Are there any more?” He hears quiet murmuring from farther down the hall and rolls his throbbing eyes, slumping further down the wall as his vision starts to spot. “Aleck?” There's humming in his ears, growing louder and louder and he shakes his head, trying to clear his vision only to make it even worse and to cause fresh, pulsating pain to spread from the crown of his head down the back of his neck. The next time he calls the engineer's name out, his voice is slurred and the humming turns to buzzing, like a dozen Bloatflies are descending on him. He swats his good hand at the sound almost absently.

 

“-rye!” He blinks his eyes open, wondering when he'd closed them. “Mr. Frye?” He looks up blearily and sees Nigel Bumble's earnest, concerned face swim before him. He's drifting now.  _Head trauma, possible—no,_ _ **probable**_ _concussion_. He motions Nigel closer while the boy continues to ask rapid-fire questions. The merc waves his hand dismissively and grabs Nigel's shoulder with his uninjured hand.

 

“Aleck here?”

 

The young-looking Synth nods. “We just got here about an hour ago. Said he couldn't concentrate back at HQ with everyone in a tizzy. Said he wants to—Mr. Frye!” His strong arms come around the human as he stumbles away from the wall, supporting him effortlessly. “Let's get you inside Mr. Frye, Mr. Bell will set you right.” He ducks under the merc's arm and supports him inside, trying to be mindful of the merc's injured torso. It's impossible to avoid though so the human endures fresh pain as he limps inside with the Synth, past the pair of Railroad agents that had been guarding this entrance, paying little attention to their surroundings until he finds himself at the bottom of some stairs, looking at a door that is very obviously a new addition to the building.

 

If he wasn't fighting unconsciousness at the moment he'd probably admire the small underground workshop Aleck has set up here. He's busted down a few walls into neighboring basements, added some heavy security, and set up an efficient, state of the art shop. Machinery liters the room, as well as the usual trappings of a living space. A couple more agents are down here, sitting at a small table eating Sugar Bombs and beer in cracked bowls. They barely glance at him before going back to their nutritious meal.

 

The merc stumbles again and Nigel grabs the back of the harness for his leg armor, hoisting him back up as Aleck comes in curiously from a side room. The older model Synth blinks in surprise, servos working overtime for a moment as he takes them in before bustling over, managing to convey concern in his mannerisms if not in his stiff, robotic face. He ducks under Jacob's other arm, apologizing profusely when the merc grunts in pain. “Mr. Frye what on earth has happened to you?”

 

He huffs. “Someone took exception to something I said.”

 

“Looks more like they took exception to your face.”

 

“Har-har. Didn't know the institute... uh-” He blinked, his mind stuttering out as they maneuvered him up onto a clear table. “Programmed... you older models with a sense of humor.”

 

The oddball Synth smiles (or the Synth equivalent of it with the stiff plastic-based skin covering their face) at him as he and Nigel begin to carefully divest the human of his armor and coat. The merc takes the blade off himself, cursing at the clumsiness that comes with using a hand with a broken wrist. Still, the blade comes free and he sets it in his lap so Aleck can pull his coat all the way off and remove the last few layers of clothing.

 

Then he steps back, blinking in an exaggerated way once and the merc can see his eyes contracting and spinning, scanning him. He moves around the table, getting the human from every angle before he comes back around and begins to inspect the head trauma more closely. When the merc starts to sway, Aleck steadies him with a hand and reaches out as Nigel comes bustling over with medical supplies.  _I didn't even see him leave..._ They're talking to him but everything is dull and muffled. There's a sharp pinch on his neck, though, and a second later everything starts coming back into crystal clear focus.

 

And as it comes into focus, it starts to hurt a lot more. He hisses in pain and slaps Aleck's hand away, rubbing the injection site on the side of his neck. “Fuck me!”

 

Aleck gives him another stiff smile and guides him into laying back against the pillow that suddenly has appeared behind him (Nigel is moving too fast for him to keep track of in his addled state). “Don't worry Mr. Frye, we'll have you sorted out in a jiffy.”

 

-

 

_He can hear screaming. Unending, desperate screaming from a throat ravaged by smoke and ash. He takes a running leap off the sloping ramp carved into the quarry wall and lands with a jarring thud on the grated platform jutting out beneath him. The raider perched on it spins and aims at his head with a crowbar but Jacob dispatches him easily, twisting his head viciously until the man's neck snaps like a twig in a child's hand._

 

_The Psycho courses through him, making him nigh invincible, if only because of how strongly he believes he is. The bullets not repelled by his armor rips through muscle and lasers burn his flesh but they might as well have been kissing him for all the affect they have. He tears through their numbers with a frantic violence, each gorey detail etched vividly into his mind because of the Jet._

 

_One of the raiders falls before him, tears staining her face as she scrambles backwards, terror in her eyes._

 

“ _Please.” She begs. “Mercy, mercy.”_

 

_Jacob feels himself grin as he looms over her, bringing his booted foot down on her skull until it becomes paste beneath his heel._

 

_The screams still echo all around him, bouncing off the stone walls despite the pile of corpses he stands upon. Their bodies are contorted impossibly, their faces frozen in agony. The ground seems to fall away from him, slowly at first and then faster as the bodies beneath him pile hire, multiplying. So many, so many killed over such a short life span. How many? He doesn't know._

 

_He's stopped counting._

 

_But they find him now, they come back to him and he looks into their dead, soulless eyes and wonders if, despite his beating heart, his look the same._

 

_-_

 

The merc wakes with a shuddering breath and sits upright so fast his vision blackens again. He sways on the mattress and groans, dropping his head into his hands.

 

He takes a few slow breaths and stands on shaky knees, staggering between the cots filled with snoring agents towards the water closet. Aleck is bent over one of his tables in the corner, mumbling to himself and tinkering with something the merc can't see. The Synth doesn't seem to sense him. Or he does and ignores him.

 

Either is fine with the merc.

 

He closes the door behind him and fumbles in his pocket for a crushed, cellophane box. He doesn't smoke often—he prefers the chems to calm his nerves and smokes are hard to come by—but he keeps a lighter and a pack on hand whenever he can. He shakes out the old zippo and taps the pack flat against his hand to pack the tobacco. Once satisfied with that, he flicks the bottom and out pops a smoke. He takes it between his lips and pockets the pack again before lighting it.

 

He sucks in a lungful of the smoke before taking the cigarette from his lips between the fingers of his uninjured hand. He leans forward, bracing his hands on either side of the sink and blows out a ring of smoke that curls against the cracked, lopsided mirror on the wall in front of him. His dark reflection stares back at him.

 

The merc flicks the lighter again and holds it up to give himself more light to see by.

 

His face is spectacularly bruised. His nose is hanging more crooked than usual, the knob in the middle looks a little bigger now. Both lips are split, there's a cut over his left eye, and both sockets carry the ugliest of the bruising. Aleck did a bang-up job tending the wounds though, considering, and the merc's never considered himself that much of a looker anyway. The damage gives his face character. He tilts his head, rotating it on his neck so he can examine himself from every angle.

 

He lingers over every cut and angry purple splotch before locking eyes with himself in the dirty glass. He stares for a long time, straightening up so he can bring his cigarette back to his lips and take another long drag.

 

His eyes are tired, angry. Sad.

 

But they aren't dead.

 

-

 

“Ah, Mr. Frye. I really must insist you stay longer. You're injuries haven't fully healed.”

 

No, but he's been sitting on his ass for four days with nothing to do but scratch his balls and endure a thousand little aches and, worst of all, think. So he waves Aleck off and straps on his bracer. “People to kill, things to see.”

 

“Shouldn't it be the other way around?”

 

“If you like.” He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck, flexing his fingers and scowling at the cumbersome brace on his broken wrist. It's going to be a hindrance but he'll deal. His ribs are the most bothersome but he thinks if he takes it slow and sticks to stealth he should be fine. He turns back to his rucksack, its contents strewn over the same table they'd tended his wounds on. He begins to repack it, only half-listening to Aleck's nervous twittering.

 

“Really, Mr. Frye. I'd feel much better if you'd stay and allow me to observe your progress a few more days. Least of all I'd feel safer if I didn't have to worry about facing your sister should something happen to you.”

 

The merc snorts at that, slanting a sarcastic grin at the Synth. “I'm sure you're safe. Evie knows fully well my fuck-ups are my own, Aleck.” _And she wouldn't be all that miffed if her pain in the ass brother was finally out of her hair._  He shakes that thought from his head and jams the last of his supplies into a pocket before zipping and latching everything shut. Satisfied, he slings it over his shoulders. “Thanks for cleaning me up, Toaster Man.”

 

The outmoded Synth replies with a plastic smirk and grasps forearms with the merc. “Are you returning to the base?”

 

The merc shakes his head as he releases the Synth's forearm and shoulders his bag more securely. “Nope. I sent word over the line that I'm following up on Lancer's intel. It shouldn't take me more than a few days to go out and scope the place he mentioned, do a little sabotage.” He picks up his helmet and clips the straps through a loop on his belt, as he didn't intend to put it on till he absolutely necessary. He gives the Synth a mock two-finger salute and makes to walk up the stairs, but a set of robotic fingers suddenly grasp his shoulder.

 

He turns to find Aleck staring at him rather intently. “Mr. Frye. Regardless of whether or not your sister would—hah— _fry_  my circuits should some ill fate befall you, I do wish you luck on your mission, and that you'll come visit again when you return.”

 

Caught off guard by that, the merc stares for a long moment before his mouth crooks in a sort of smile. “Sure. See you later, Mr. Bell.”

 

-

 

Beantown Brewery is on the complete opposite side of Boston, but its hardly the longest journey he's undertaken. The only reason it takes as long as it does for him to get there is because he has to travel through the heart of the ruins to get there. Super Mutants, roaming bands of ferals, and  _fucking raiders_ (they're starting to get on his nerves more so than usual), and all manner of other wonderful life the 'Wealth has to offer stands between him and the source of the tainted Jet. From what he understood (between Lancer's pitiful pleas for mercy) during the interrogation, this isn't the original source of the poison, but it has been converted and has become one of the biggest manufacturing plants for the tainted chems. All their Jet-based product is being mixed there.

 

When the merc finally reaches the coordinates, he heads down south and sets up on a small hillock overlooking a cracked, cratered parking lot that has been converted into a Brahmin pasture. Set between it and the river is the brewery. Once he's fairly certain he hasn't been observed while staking this spot out, and that he can't be observed from the factory, he settles down and pulls out his binocs.

 

-

 

He wonders what Evie is doing. He wonders what Pearl is doing. Though he tries not to, he wonders what Ned is doing. Though he tries  _hard_ , he can't help but think of the bespectacled trader as he scopes out the factory and formulates his plan. The thought of  _how would Ned do this_ enters his mind unbidden on more than one occasion and he nearly bites his tongue off one night when he snaps his teeth together in frustration.

 

He doesn't have the luxury of indulging in day dreams right now. He needs to focus on the mission at hand. The merc has a job to do, and its to get inside that factory, shut down production, ensure that it comes to a complete halt, and, if he can, get more information on the network of distributors so he can find the original source.

 

Never mind that Ned would probably have a clever plan by now on how to accomplish all of that with minimal fuss.

 

He finds himself staring blankly up at a cloud passing overhead, thinking about the dark look on Ned's face when he'd nearly run into him at the Combat Zone. The anger and disgust in those eyes. Hatred, dismissal. It shouldn't be affecting him the way it is. It shouldn't be distracting him.

 

Seeing the loathing and disgust others feel for him is nothing new to the merc. And it's never affected him like this before.

 

He clenches his fists until his knuckles crack.

 

Then he stiffens and looks around, scanning the trees. The crack had been far too loud for his knuckles popping—it had sounded more like footsteps on a brittle twig. His machete slides out of its sheathe with a quiet rasp as he raises to his feet, scanning his surroundings. The owner of the footsteps is some ten meters away though and without any Jet to sharpen his senses...

 

He sighs and curses his sister under his breath since it's easier to blame her at the moment than to blame everyone involved in the tainted chems. His binocs are pre-war civilian issue, meaning no night vision or infrared. Still he retrieves them and brings them up to his eyes to sweep the trees.

 

He spots the moving shadow as it crosses the railroad tracks and creeps up to a door.

 

Probably not one of the crew working there, then, the merc muses. If he's sneaking around he likely has nothing to do with them. The merc observes the unknown person jerk uselessly on the doors before creeping around the corner, probably looking for another way in.

 

What he finds instead is a patrol approaching. The merc snorts to himself as the person backpedals and throws himself under a car just as the two guards turn the corner.

 

The merc cracks his knuckles and shoulders his pack.

 

He moves silently for someone so big, using the tree cover and the handful of pre-war cars littering this side of the lot to keep himself out of the guards' line of sight. He makes it into the parking lot and is almost upon them when they turn and spot him. He straightens and closes the distance at a sprint, the blade on his arm extending and slicing through one's jugular in a single, fluid motion as the merc pivots and hacks with his machete at the second. The blade leaves a sick, gaping wound in the junction of the man's shoulder and neck and he goes down gasping for air, trying to shout for reinforcements. The merc silences him with another swing of the blade. He sheathes it and is in the process of dragging them out of sight when another patrol rounds the corner. He barely has time to utter an exasperated “Fuck” before they open fire. He takes a bullet to the unprotected meat on his bicep and another whizzes by dangerously close to his ear but he manages to throw himself behind a car in time to avoid certain death.

 

A ghoul peers out at him and he nearly shits his pants before he realizes it's the person he'd observed trying to open the door. He holds a finger to his lips and gestures for the ghoul to stay down as the guards' running footsteps grow closer. He unholsters his shotgun and rolls out from behind his hiding spot, pumping two of the slugs into the first guy. He falls to the ground, tripping up one of his companions and gives the merc an ample distraction to off the third, untripped man who had thought to run around the other side of the car so they could surround him. He kills the third with a slug to the gut and then the head, and empties the rest of them into the man that had been tripped as he gets up.

 

With those three dead he checks to make sure no more are coming before bending down and holding his hand out for the ghoul to grab. “Come on.”

 

He senses the ghoul hesitate before a gnarled hand comes out from underneath the cab and uses the grip on the merc's hand to leverage himself out of the narrow hiding spot. The merc helps him up, taking a moment to appraise the ghoul as he brushes himself off and mutters to himself about violence and youth.

 

Some ghouls still have a bit of hair on them. Little tufts or peach fuzz but a lot wear wigs or hats or shave themselves bald. Clara likes to wear different colored ribbons around her bald skull, tying them into intricate bows. This ghoul however, has a magnificent snow-white beard. He's wearing a suit and dented bowler hat without a single piece of armor or protective gear in sight. He's not even carrying any weapons as far as the merc can see. He also appears to be quite old, or was before the ghoulification as he walks slightly hunched over an as if every joint is protesting. Not altogether unusual in a ghoul but that, coupled with his angry mutterings and the snowy white beard lead Jacob to believe this is an old pre-war ghoul he's dealing with. “You alright?” He finally asks.

 

The ghoul bats his hands once more against his suit jacket and glares at Jacob. “I most certainly am not, but I have no time to dally young man. The goings-on in this factory must be stopped, so if you're not with them-”

 

The merc crosses his arms, amused. “Nope, not with them.”

 

“Well. Then thank you for taking care of those violent thugs but I really must get inside now. Excuse me.” The old ghoul turns and begins speed walking back towards the door.

 

The merc jogs to catch up with him, grinning. “Relax old man, you and I seem to have the same goal in mind.” He sticks his hand out again. “What say you to helping me with a little sabotage?”

 

The pitted face of the old ghoul is hard to read. He must have been quite old before the radiation melted and hardened his skin, because even underneath all the burn scars he seems like he has a craggy, lined face. He regards the mercenary for a long moment before finally accepting the handshake. “Very well. After you.”

 

The merc cracks his knuckles and bends to examine the lock briefly before straightening and popping out the blade on his wrist. He jams it into the lock and after a moment there's a click which causes his grin to widen. He pulls it open with a flourish and looks over at the ghoul. “After you, sir.”

 

The old ghoul harrumphs and ducks inside with the merc following closely on his heels. They slip silently into the brewery and slink along the counter. The old ghoul grabs his sleeve and points towards the counter, jerking his head in the same direction. Then he holds up one finger and mimes as though he's sleeping.

 

The merc takes a moment but then he understands. Despite their lack of nose and their deadened nerves, ghouls have finely tuned senses. One guard, sleeping on the other side. He gestures for the old ghoul to stay there and creeps around, into the room and pounces on the sleeper before they know what's happening. He slits the man's throat without preamble and hurries back out to meet with Darwin. Together they head through the only other door and up some stairs. They come out on a high catwalk and they crouch as they approach the edge, peering down into the factory.

 

Most of the equipment has been gutted and removed, but some of it remains, converted for the purpose of distilling and mixing. The overwhelming stench of manure causes them both to gag slightly, covering their faces with their arms. They duck back into the hall and ease the door closed, muffling their hacking coughs into their sleeves.

 

“We need masks.” The ghoul nods at this and gestures the merc back down the stairs. “Let us see if our friend downstairs has some we can borrow.”

 

They move as quietly and quickly back down as they can, and scour the room the sleeper had been in. They find one mask with a slightly cracked face, but the filter seems to be functioning well enough. Reluctantly the merc offers it to the ghoul—unpleasant aromas aside he has no choice but to finish the job, and it would be easier if he had someone watching his back. The ghoul however waves him off. “I've an idea. Give me your rucksack, put on this gentleman's armor.” He reaches down and rolls the man slightly over, revealing an insignia like a cross on his shoulder.  _Starrick's mark—_ Jacob realizes. “They'll think you're one of theirs, you'll be able to walk freely among them.”

 

The merc considers it for a moment. Truth be told he'd rather just start lobbing explosives in there but he's down to three at the moment and hasn't found the time or space to resupply himself. And this way he stands a better chance of finding some intel as well. Still, he parts with his rucksack with some hesitation—he's just met the ghoul after all—and shucks the armor he can't hide or disguise or pass off, jamming it into his rucksack. Then he strips the dead man and pulls the marked armor over himself. Satisfied he slips on the mask and pulls up his hood. “How do I look?” Through the filter his voice is muffled and somewhat tinny.

 

The ghoul holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Please sir, it was all the smoothskin's idea!” he rasps.

 

The merc chuckles and helps the ghoul stand, wincing in sympathy when the old man staggers under the weight. “If I'm not out in an hour, do me a favor and send word to Bunker Hill that the crows from the north had their necks snapped by dogs in the west, alright?” The ghoul gives him an odd look but nods. The merc claps him on the shoulder and hefts his shotgun, rolling his shoulders at the uncomfortable weight of unfamiliar armor. He jogs back up the stairs as the ghoul ducks back outside to find a hiding spot.

 

He eases through the door and slings his gun over his shoulder, casual and relaxed as he saunters downstairs, eyes sweeping for traps and guards. Everyone seems to be on low-alert, meaning no one has found the dead bodies outside. Good. He nods to a few of the assembled guards and chemists as he passes them on a slowly, meandering path through all the out-of-place machinery that has taken up residence between the vats. He can still smell manure, and the closer he gets to the vats the stronger it is. But the mask makes it bearable so he wanders closer, formulating a plan in his head.

 

He has only a basic understanding of how this set up will work. After all, he's no chemist himself but he's been around enough that the basic concept isn't lost on him. He gauges which valves and pipes he'll need to sabotage for the biggest reaction...

 

He could stink everyone out, and toss some explosives to light up the fumes. The resulting explosion would be massive and uncontained, but he would be unsure if it would render everything unsalvageable. Or he could sabotage the mixtures themselves, loosen certain joints, maybe tip a few of those barrels of radioactive waste that are stacked in the far corner over and  _really_  get this party going.

 

That idea is stupid and dangerous and has a high chance of getting himself killed though...

 

He grits his teeth and moves to the first station.

 

Papers are stuffed into his pockets. Ledgers and holotapes that look important are given a quick examination and added to his horde. He twists knobs and mixes oddly colored liquids haphazardly. He disconnects hoses and reconnects some in incorrect sequences. He blows out Bunsen flames but leaves the gas running. He turns valves on the sides of pipes and a thin gray mist starts to float over the floor a few minutes later. He hears some panicking, confused shouts and speeds up his sabotage.

 

“OY!” Something slams into his back as he's wrenching a thick rubber hose out of the side of a tall metal barrel. He crashes to the floor with some brute on top of him but manages to avoid the fists aimed at his head and throw the man off him. He kicks out from where he's lying on his back and lands a hit directly in the brute's mask, smashing a hole in the face and snapping the mouthpiece with the filter off.

 

The man screams in terror and anger as he scrambles up, hacking and spitting behind his mask. He rips it off as Jacob leaps to his feet, beating a hasty retreat. He grabs onto a valve and wrenches it to the side, releasing a hissing jet of the mist into the air above his head. He ducks and runs, leaving the screaming man behind him. There are more panicked voices now, calling instructions to each other. The machinery lets out an angry groan and shudders as someone tries to shut down the production, probably in an attempt to stop the spread of the gas. There's plenty of it left in the tanks though and it spills out into the factory as the merc breaks more pipes and tears at more hoses and opens a half dozen more valves. The mist is already nearly as high as his waist when another guard spots him.

 

The panicking moron raises his gun, aiming for the merc's head. Maybe he doesn't realize what will happen if he fires or if he doesn't care. The merc snatches up a metal tray and wings it through the air. It thwacks the other man in the face hard enough to have his head snapping back and his weapon lowering. The merc closes the distance between them and stabs his blade into the man's throat before tossing him aside and spinning towards the barrels. They're stacked in a high pyramid with a wide base, and if he can upset one of them just right, the rest should follow. He sprints towards them, praying the filters in the mask will work against this level of airborne toxins. The mist is reaching towards his chest as he skids to a halt in front of the barrels.

 

He can feel the oppressive, sickly heat of the radiation emanating from them as he unclips one of the explosives from his belt. He engages the timer quickly and sucks in a deep breath of filtered air before ducking under the mist.

 

Visibility is almost zero in the cloud of poison. He has to feel for the crevice between two of the barrels and he knows he's sucking up a lot of rads right now but it needs to be done. He hadn't thought to pop any Rad-X. Surely the suckers working here would have personal stashes he could have raided but its too late for that. He sets the device, engages the timer, and pushes up into a sprint in the opposite direction.

 

Something heavy slams into him from above and for the second time he goes down with a painful thud, gasping. The air he inhales into his lungs is cold and bitter. The body on top of him is rolling him over, fists pounding into every inch of the merc's body and the breath his driven from his lungs again. He clamps his jaw shut, fighting against the urge to inhale again as they grapple on the ground. Their hands grab at each other's masks, trying to rip them from the other's face as they fight.

 

His chest begins to constrict and his eyes are watering from lack of oxygen. Desperate, he takes one hand off his adversary and flicks the blade on his wrist, jamming it with all his strength in the man's side at the same time he rips off the merc's mask and tosses it away into the thick gray cloud. The man howls and falls on top of him, forcing the merc's mouth open in a grunt of pain, and he inhales again unwillingly. He exhales violently, hoping it pushes the poison from his lungs. He stabs the man again, thrusting the blade between his ribs repeatedly until he shudders and goes limp.

 

He struggles: to continue holding his breath, to get the dead weight off him, to not panic. He won't inhale, probably couldn't with the weight on his chest. He will not turn into a raving ghoul and die this way.

 

He finally wiggles out from under the dead man and tears off his mask, fumbling as he stands and slides it over his own head. He engages the seal again as he runs towards a ladder set into the wall nearby and he has to take a shuddering, desperate breath before he's clear of the mist.

 

The air he inhales is bitter and sharp.

 

Alarms blare in his head as he exhales harshly and holds his breath until he clambers up the ladder and out of the cloud but he knows it’s probably too late. He's already inhaled; it's in his lungs, in his system. His skin starts to crawl as he vaults over the edge of the catwalk and sprints down it, searching desperately for an exit.

 

Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe it wasn't enough, maybe you had to take more than one hit. He'll be fine, he'll be fine. He needs to concentrate on getting out of here. It was one hit; it was incomplete product. Maybe he's fine. Maybe it won't change him. Maybe-

 

The bomb goes off. The barrels are thrown into the air, the gasses in the building ignite, the platform he's on shakes and buckles, throwing him down onto the rusty grates and driving the air from his lungs again.

 

He shoves up, and sees there's a window at the end of the catwalk.

 

He runs towards it, his breath wheezing in and out of his lungs now, and throws himself through the cracked and brittle glass, tucking his legs close to his body and wrapping his arms over his head as the.

 

He tumbles through the air once before he uncurls and looks below him. His stomach clenches with the sensation of free falling and he slams into the one of the massive pipes sticking out of the wall. Stars burst before his eyes as his body crumbles with the metal but before he can get his bearings back to scramble for purchase against the sides he's slipping down over the curve and falling again.

 

Desperate, he angles his body and kicks off the groaning metal, pushing himself farther out towards the river. He pinwheels his arms, legs kicking as he tries to get his body upright, to get himself angled all while praying desperately that he isn't about to break his legs. He gets his legs under him and kicks his heels together firmly, creating the smallest possibly impact surface.

 

He hits the water and pain lances up his legs, and a moment later thick, greasy water closes over his head.

 

He's dragged with the current almost instantly and his legs catch on a rock embedded in the riverbed, sending him somersaulting through the water before he can get his feet under him to push up and kick towards the surface. His lungs are screaming, they feel like they’re on fire and his skin is itching and he prays that's just the radiation in the water. Prays he's just soaking up some easily purged rads, not going full ghoul.

 

_Atom help me, don't let it end like this._

 

He paddles towards the riverbank and clambers up it, everything in him shaking as he pulls himself from the icy water and bends over.

 

He jams his fingers down his throat, gagging at the taste of the dirt, blood, poison, and filth covering his gloved digits. He pressed back until his gag reflex kicked hard, and emptied his stomach on the riverbank. He repeated this process twice, until he was simply dry-heaving.

 

_It's not going to help. Radaway. I need Radaway._

 

He hauled himself up the embankment and back towards the brewery. The river hadn't washed him very far away, and despite the fatigue and pain dragging at his limbs and his lungs screaming in protest he forced himself to keep moving. His head was spinning violently; he was near hysterical with panic. He vaulted over a low barricade, ignoring the smoke pouring from every window and door, ignoring the shouts of the men and women now pouring into the parking lot and the screams of the frightened Brahmin. He kicked down the door to a shed that looked like it had been used as a sentry post and began to rummage through the contents within. He let out a thin scream of frustration when he couldn't find what he needed.

 

A body slammed into him for a third time that night but instead of attacking him it was running past, running out of the door the merc and the ghoul had first gone into-

 

The scene suddenly flashed fresh in his mind. The high counter, the stacks of crates, the backroom where the sleeper had been shirking his duties, allowing the pair of saboteurs to sneak into the building. And he recalled, with startling abruptness, the cracked white box with the green cross on its casing.

 

More explosions were going off in the building. Machinery, vats of chemicals, who knew. It would be suicide running back in there for the small chance he may be able to find what he needed.

 

_It's that or death by ghoulification._

 

His skin was still crawling, itching fiercely. He took a deep breath and bolted for the door, vaulting over the counter and tripping as he scrambled into the room. He fell to his hands and knees and crawled towards the shelf he'd seen the case on.

 

He blamed the tears in his eyes on the smoke and the screaming pain in his lungs as he opened the first aid kit and found it well-stocked.

 

 _Starrick's bankrolling this operation after all._  He laughed, or perhaps a more accurate term would be  _cackled_. Hardly daring to believe it and fighting to reign in the tears and the nauseating panic, he gathered the box under his arm and scrambled up, out of the room and out of the building.

 

Then he ran. He ran, with no direction in his mind except for away. He ran until his lungs felt as though they were full of battery acid and his skin felt like someone was teasing it with molten metal. He felt to the ground in a small hollow created by a ring of trees and a few large boulders and ripped off his armor and coat, pulling the first bag of Radaway from the box even as he contorted his arms and torso so he could grab and wrestle his sleeve up with his teeth. The creases of his elbows were pocked with trackmarks old and new, and he barely spared a moment to find the vein and prep the drip before the needle was sliding beneath his skin. His hands shook as he hung the bag on a low, crooked branch and made sure the drip was running.

 

He hesitated, his entire body trembling now, and he realized part of it was from the hacked off sobs he was making. He thought he might be ill again, wondered if it was just his imagination or the Jet or his skin really was melting off before his very eyes.

 

He makes a sound like a wounded animal and grabs the other two bags of Radaway jammed into the box.

 

-

 

He doesn't know when he blacks out, or remember doing so. To be quite honest he doesn't remember anything past falling into this hollow and sliding the first needle into his arm.

 

He feels hands touching his face, his neck, his chest, his arms. Cautious fingers probing the makeshift bandages fashioned from his own shirt that kept the needles in his skin. Someone was talking to him, someone with a voice full of gravel. Gnarled hands peel his eye lids back and force his mouth open to pour water down his throat. Another voice, a robotic female one, and a prick of pain against his neck. He feels the needles being slid from beneath his skin and he tries to protest but all that leaves his parched throat is an odd gurgling sound.

 

He feels himself being lifted, feels his hefty bulk being dragged over a hard, warm metal form. Feels cold robotic limbs and gnarled hands steady him on the back of whatever it is that is carrying his dead weight. The body beneath him has another voice, a hard, metallic tone that still manages to sound poetic as it speaks with the other two voices. He feels his legs being lifted and wrapped around the metal form and then his thighs are being gripped in cold, painful vices.

 

After that he has to groan and snap his eyes shut because whatever is carrying him takes off with a jolting, loping sort of movement that makes him even more ill.

 

His skin is feels like its melting, his scalp tingles like his hair is being pulled out. His eyes burn and itch and his throat and mouth is so dry it feels like someone forced him to eat a pair of jeans.

 

He thinks he must have blacked out again, because when he becomes aware of himself again all his nerve endings are in agony. There are hands and pincers holding him down, voices warbling over him.

 

What had he taken? Was he OD'ing? It sort of felt like that. He'd OD'd and nearly died plenty of times to be familiar with it by now.

 

Problem was he couldn't remember what the hell he'd taken. That was no good.

 

He wonders how he went from the weird, bumpy ride on the back of... whatever had been carrying him, to lying on a moldy-smelling mattress under an extremely blue sky.

 

It is, in fact, the bluest sky he's ever seen. And so he's extremely confused when he feels a raindrop splat between his eyes, causing his entire body to convulse instead of simply jerk in his shock. He blinks, slowly, then does it again but no clouds appear. It takes a gust of wind blowing into it for the merc to realize he's staring at the underside of a tarp.

 

That's about all he's aware of at the moment, beside the all-consuming pain sliding through his body. He doesn't even have it in him to cry out with that pain. All he can do is lie there and endure.

 

Is this what turning into a ghoul feels like? Is whatever was put into those tainted chems melting his brain? Is he going feral? He wants to lift his hands to his face to see if they're covered in radiation burns or if they look like they feel—like everything, the muscle, the skin, everything has melted away until only bone is left. He wants to touch his scalp to see if his hair is patchy and shedding, or if his entire scalp has been boiled off to leave nothing but a shiny skull behind.

 

That's what it feels like.

 

He feels like his teeth are falling out, like something has taken root behind and his trying to push his eyeballs out of his skull, like his organs are turning to liquid. Someone keeps pouring water down his throat and trying to get him to close his eyes but neither of those things brings him any relief.

 

He doesn't know how long he's been staring up at that tarp when he hears the sounds of fighting, or how long it takes him to realize that's what's happening. All he knows is that the last thing he remembers before blacking out is an ugly, grinning face leaning over him. “Why that's Pearl's Boy!” The man says. “You ain't lookin' so good anymore, kid.”

 

His eyes roll back in his head and he lets the darkness cover him.

 

 


	5. Better to Burn than to Rot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alternately: "One dream will suffice a thousand nightmares."
> 
> He's burning from the inside out, he feels like his skin is melting off. But he can't do a fucking thing about it, because all those whispers, all those demons he carries with him are keeping him trapped within his own dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for this chapter: Lots of violence, lots of death, Jacob is extremely ill, Pearl is extremely creepy, and poor Jacob's mental state is just... a mess. Also Ethan is a fucking monster. More angst ahead BUT that will start to change in the next chapter. See the end notes for more deets.
> 
> And, i am very sorry for how late this is. I have had ThingsTM happening in my life that have exhausted me mentally and this is a very taxing story to write. However, the next chapter will likely be right on time. =)

“ _-sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you. But in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me-”_

 

 _Jacob's eyes snap open and he shoot up in the low bed, breathing far too hard and scrabbling at the prickling pain in the crease of his right elbow. His eyes fall to the expanse of tanned, unbroken skin._  No track marks, no burn scars and bullet holes- _His eyes sweep along his arms and his hands roam over his chest, searching for wounds he knows to be there, but finding only a light dusting of hair. He lifts shaking hands to his cheek and face, searching for the gouge missing from his right brow and the long along the left side of his jaw but again all he encounters is his own coarse hair._

 

 _His breath shudders out of him. His mind is muddled and cloudy but-... He swings his legs out of the bed, still trembling, as the door to the small room_  wooshes  _open._

 

_Nana enters, bearing a small tray with a bowl of stew._

 

 _He feels himself go almost boneless at the sight of her. Pain and longing and_  love  _punch through him as she sees him sitting up and smiles. “Love, you should be resting.”_

 

“ _Nana...”_

 

_Her expression morphs into concern, her wrinkled face pulling down as she sets the tray aside and crosses the room to cup his face in her hands. “What's wrong, my boy?” Her thick, kind voice is low and comforting and he closes his eyes as he leans forward, laying his cheek against her breast and listening to her heartbeat. The steady, comforting lullaby of his childhood. He brings shaky, unmarked arms up to wrap around her waist, trembling harder as he hugs her. “Jacob, my sweet boy.”_

 

_He starts to cry._

 

_The body held tightly in his arms is harder, tougher. Stocky, sturdy. A lethal war machine, wrapped in soft, feminine curves Evie had never succeeded in shaving off. Her hands are warm on his back and he feels her own tears splash hot and wet against the top of his head. The creases of his arms start to burn and prickle, and without looking he knows he would see the track marks carving themselves back into his skin, blood welling and trickling down his arm. He knows without looking that the inside of his elbows are ugly and scared again, all the evidence of weakness traced with nasty red lines and puncture marks so that no one, least of all him, can forget what he is. A worthless, weak, disgusting chem addict._

 

“ _I have you, Jacob. I'm here.”_

 

_She is. Evie, his sister. His twin, his heart. Evie, who keeps him grounded, keeps him from being swallowed by his own inadequacy, keeps him mired in the now so he doesn't drown in the past. She smells like sweat and blood and dust and the faint tang of burning metal that hangs in the air around those who favor laser weapons. She smells like leather and campfires. Her arms are warm and safe around him and—and they're pulling away, trying to release him and no, no no no no no she's leaving-!_

 

_He turns his face into the cushion of her chest to muffle the sobs tearing their way out of his throat. He clings tighter as she pulls away, her hands trying to pry his arms off. “Please... Please, Evie, don't-”_

 

_But then she's gone, and the room is dark and cold. His tears dry up but the clog in his throat tightens._

 

-

 

Everything burns. Everything hurts so god damn much. He shudders awake, coughing so hard he starts to choke. Hands press a cool, wet cloth to his forehead but with none of the gentleness of someone with a good bedside manner. Instead the touch is rushed, impatient, and hurts more than it comforts when it makes his aching head pulse. Something is tipped into his mouth to trickle down his throat, something bitter but refreshing and he tries to sit up, to chug it down but he starts coughing it back up. His thighs feel wet, the fabric of his pants itchy and irritating. His throat feels like it's been scrubbed with one of the brillo pads he'll use to cook up some Psycho in a pinch. There are hands on him, holding him down, and he sees the glint of a needle and tries to thrash away— _No, no, no more, please, no more—_ But he's weak and delirious and whatever is in the syringe floods through his arm a moment later.

 

-

 

_He doesn't want to be in this tiny room, alone. He doesn't want to be here. His breath comes in short, sharp gasps and he yanks with all his might on the handle, throwing himself bodily against it. Ethan left him here to die but he's not ready. He's not ready to die, he doesn't want to die, death is terrifying and he wants Evie, he wants his Nana, he wants the kind, freckle-faced farm boy, he wants—_

 

_He wants his mother._

 

_He slams himself against the door once more and it falls open under his weight, sending him tumbling forward into blackness-_

 

_-_

 

“There now, love. Breathe.”

 

The purring voice is familiar, as are the hands that gently, oh so gently raise his head from the sweat-damped pillows and presses a glass to his lips. It goes down easier this time but does nothing to soothe the raw, excruciating pain in his throat. He swallows weakly and jerks his head away, clenching his eyes shut and fisting his hands in the sheets. He twists and stretches and the skin on his neck and arms pulls taut. Its then that he realizes that every inch of his skin feels like its covered in tiny, skittering bugs and he thrashes, slapping at himself and trying to peel them off. Soft hands restrain him and, damn, he's really far gone that someone with that small of hands can hold him down so easily.

 

“Don't, you'll only make it worse.”

 

The factory. The smoke—Jet leaking into the air. His mask ripped off, having to breathe before he could get to safety. His skin, on fire, like he's being covered in hot, bubbling wax. Agents and drifters, chem heads lying in cots, screaming in anguish as their skin melts off and what remains starts to decay along with their minds until the screaming stops and they lay there, staring unseeing at the ceiling-

 

He sobs and shakes his head, dragging blunted nails over his arms, trying to brush off the skittering bugs. His tongue is thick and heavy in his mouth and he can't formulate the words to ask for help, to ask for the voice to make it stop. Instead the voice continues to hold him down, to pull his hands away when they claw into his burning flesh. The voice speaks to him with words meant to soothe, but only succeed in making him panic and whimper like a frightened child.

 

“There, there, my sweet. Just breathe through it.”

 

“Ugh—I...” He tosses his head from side to side and writhes under the hands, panting wildly. “I want-”

 

“Shhh.”

 

“Skin... skin hurts...” He babbles, twisting on the mattress, trying to escape the sheets sticky with his own sweat, clinging to his aching body. The hands belonging to the voice brush across his cheek, tracing his jawline. The touch is so  _familiar_... but so  _wrong_ and he shudders, arching away from it, trying to escape- “Hurts... hurts...”

 

“Hush, Pet.” There's a glass at his lips again, coaxing him into drinking and he can't fight, can't, he's too tired, so he lets the bitter liquid pour down his throat and slips with it into darkness.

 

-

 

“ _What do you think?”_

 

_Jacob turns his head, blinking over at Mr. Wynert who is sitting on a crate turned on its side, hands extended towards the small fire Jacob built them. “Of?” Mr. Wynert gestures around them, at the train car they're in. Jacob's sitting with one leg dangling out of the car, kicking freely in the air while he leans back against the open door. Jacob looks around him, frowning, and shrugs. “I dunno, decent shelter I suppose. Bit impractical if you were on your own, too hard to defend, but with a group-”_

 

“ _No, crimeny, you're a mercenary through and through, aren't you?” When Jacob hesitates, looking a little put-out at that, Mr. Wynert shakes his head. “Sorry, I just mean. What do you think about trains?”_

 

_Jacob's still confused. “I... dunno? They're... useful for cover?”_

 

_Mr. Wynert chuckles almost fondly and it brings a small, hesitant smile to Jacob's face. “You know what they were used for before the bombs?”_

 

_Jacob shrugs again. “Ah... transport?” He poses it like a question, and feels stupid._

 

_Mr. Wynert only nods, rubbing his hands together a little to try and get some warmth back into them. Jacob, very ridiculously, wants to go over and take the trader's small, clever hands between his own and warm them for him. He tries to hide his flush by turning his head to look out at their small camp. He has no business thinking of the other man that way, he tries to tell himself. They've only known each other a month or so. Mr. Wynert's his employer, nothing more._

 

_Too fancy and high-bred for a doped-up merc anyway, Jacob tells himself, even if the shorter man is no saint in this world. It makes Jacob feel more morose than angry, like he usually feels. Maybe it's just because the man is so damn pretty... He shakes his head to quell the thought and focuses his attention as the trader starts to talk again._

 

“ _Before the war they used these things to transport goods and people across the continent. Some of the more high-tech lines could travel the span of the US in just under three days. Most people preferred to travel by the monorails, but those weren't transcontinental yet.”_

 

_Jacob smiled brightly, having turned his head back to watch Mr. Wynert talk. “How do you know so much?”_

 

_The trader smirks at him. “Bit of a, uh... self-made historian. I like to read about the state of things before the war, and before that even. I read anything about the old world that I can. Trains though, they're something of a soft spot for me.”_

 

“ _Why's that?”_

 

_His smile widens at the sight of the trader flushing a little under his words. “Well...”_

 

“ _Go on, Mr. Wynert.”_

 

_The older man sighs. “Well, I've got a dream of starting up a train company. Here in the Commonwealth.”_

 

_Jacob lets out a great, barking **HA** of laughter._

 

“ _Don't laugh.”_

 

_It takes him a moment, because it's such an absurd thing to say, and the laughter had been startled out of him. He manages it after a moment and grins at Mr. Wynert. The trader tries not to smile back but Jacob can see the curl at the corners of his mouth, and his stomach clenches with the desire to kiss the older man breathless. “Sorry, but it's funny.”_

 

“ _It is not. Alright, I admit it's an... improbable dream. But you must admit that if we could get some of these rusty old things moving again, clear the tracks, it would... completely change the wasteland as we know it.”_

 

_What a foolish man, he thinks. A foolish man with foolish dreams. Still, to have that kind of dream is impressive. Everyone talks in abstract of bettering the world, of rebuilding, and they manage for a bit before reality crashes down around them, but he seems serious about it. His eyes light up with determination and his smile turns a little fierce as he undoubtedly pictures one as it speeds through the wasteland. And now Jacob can't help but picture that, picture himself standing next to the man, listening to him laugh with exhilaration as they rush past another settlement on the locomotive, kings of the apocalypse-_

 

_Mr. Wynert's talking again, interrupting the silly image. “Imagine it though. Imagine the possibilities: transportation, construction. Trade. Supplies being ferried back and forth across greater distances than any caravan can reach, and in shorter time. The transportation of displaced settlers, of reinforcement troops. The fucking Brotherhood zip around in those old vertibirds, I even heard they got a zeppelin working, down in DC. Trains are a viable possibility, if someone with the passion and vision needed to get them going again was around.”_

 

_Jacob laughs. “Well, you're around.”_

 

“ _What?”_

 

_The merc shrugs, his cheeks warming and he toys with the blade on his wrist nervously. “I don't know, I mean. You know all about them pre-war, right? And you're always working on your power armor suits. Why don't you get the trains going?”_

 

_Ned smiles at him, fond and bright, and his stomach flutters. “It's your fault.”_

 

_Jacob's throat clogs and he tenses, his hand coming away from his blade as he bends his wrist reflexively, ready to unsheathe it at a moment's notice. “Wh... what?”_

 

_Ned's smile is... warm. Friendly. Fond, he wants to think. His eyes glimmer in the firelight and he looks young and sweet, rather than world-weary and suspicious. “Everything. It's your fault.”_

 

“ _I-”_

 

“ _It's your fault, Frye.” He whips around and finds himself staring down at Collin, standing in the dirt next to the tracks and glaring up at Jacob with pure loathing in his eyes. “The warehouse. It's your fault. You put that look in his eye, spat in his face after he helped you. You deserve to die.”_

 

“ _It's your fault.” He jerks around, staring up at Ned who is standing over him now, staring down at him with dead eyes. Painful-looking burns cover the exposed parts of his body and his suit hangs in tatters on his small frame. “If you hadn't knocked over their caravan, if you hadn't ignored the survivors, the Dunwich gang wouldn't have retaliated. They wouldn't have come; they wouldn't have tried to roast me alive.”_

 

“ _It's your fault.” He sobs and curls in on himself but Evie crouches in front of him, yanking on his left wrist, the one wearing the blade— “They died, they all died and it's your fault. You're nothing but a pathetic addict, the tainted chems are your fault-”_

 

“ _I wasn't their dealer!” He shouts, yanking his arm away and curling both over his head, trying to drown out their voices. “I didn't make the chems!”_

 

“ _But you haven't stopped them, have you? Because you're weak.”_

 

“ _Shut up!” He shrieks._

 

“ _It's your fault-” He sobs, shaking his head and shoving it between his knees to try and use them to press his hands tighter against his ears so he can't hear his father. “Your fault. You disgust me. You're nothing but a waste of precious air. It's your fault they all died—your fault we were there. Your fault, because we wouldn't have been there if you'd just been good enough, like your sister. Instead you rotted your brain with that shit and let yourself be buggered by anyone with a quick fix-”_

 

“ _STOP!”_

 

“ _You needed to be taught a lesson, but I wasn't the right teacher. I tried to be, but you were stubborn. You needed to learn.”_

 

“ ** _NO!_** _” He swings out, flicking his blade free and swiping at his sister and father before throwing himself sideways, knocking Collin out of the way. He falls flat on the ground and tastes blood when his teeth meet with a rock jutting out of the dirt but he pushes up to his hands and knees and crawls, his eyes wild and every nerve in his body prickling. “You're gone... you're not here... we left...” He chants to himself, over and over again. “It's not real, it's not real. You can't be here-”_

 

“ _It's your fault.”_

 

_He gasps and chokes, falling down flat and there's something wet underneath his face. He thinks for a moment it's his own tears or he's thrown up but he smells copper and opens his eyes, realizing he's prostrating himself in a puddle of blood that's growing wider with every breath. He yelps in disgust and terror and tries to scramble back but someone crouches in front of him and places gentle hands on his face, tilting his head up so he's forced to look into the face of the sweet, freckle-faced farm boy he'd loved. “It's your fault.”_

 

_Jacob sobs and reaches out with hands that are smaller, younger, covered in fewer scars than the hands of his adult self. He curls his fingers around the boy's shoulders, squeezing hard enough to bruise but he can't let him go— “I'm sorry, so sorry-”_

 

“ _He killed me.”_

 

“ _I know.”_

 

“ _He killed me because of you.”_

 

“ _I know-”_

 

“ _It's all your fau-ughk!” Blood splatters against his face, shocking him into silence and making him freeze. Ethan's wrist blades protrude out the front of the boy's throat, glinting cruelly inches from Jacob's face as Ethan stands behind the boy, twisting his wrists. The boy gags and hacks and Jacob can't breathe, can't think, can't see, everything is going dark-_

 

“ _Frye.”_

 

_He can't even dredge up the energy to sob when he hears the gurgling voice. He doesn't want to look, doesn't want to open his eyes._

 

“ _Frye, look at me.” He shakes his head. “Jacob.”_

 

_He opens his eyes, staring up with dread curling in his chest into Ned's greying face. He watches blood trickle from the corners of his lips, watches him cough so it gushes instead, spraying Jacob's face. “You did this.”_

 

_The words taste like ash in his mouth. “I know.” He knows. He knows, he knows it’s his fault. Their blood is on his hands, their suffering caused by his actions. He knows, he doesn't want to know but it burns in him. Burns even more horrifically than the fire on his skin. Ned gurgles again as Ethan wrenches his blades free and throws the trader to the side like trash before advancing on his son._

 

_But Jacob surges to his feet, and slams into his father, hands going around his throat-_

 

_-_

 

“-why you don't simply dispose of him.” He doesn't recognize the voice. Strong, but calm. Dark, but polite. It makes him shudder.

 

“Now, now, dear. What sort of person would I be to murder my beloved pets when they disappoint me?” That voice, he knows. He recognizes the purr, the throaty chuckle. He knows that voice, but he can't call up the name, even though he wants to call it out, to have the owner come save him from skin that's too tight over his body, that's crawling and prickling and itching unbearably.

 

“A practical one.”

 

The voices are muffled, like he's under water. He shakes his head but stops quickly when he starts to black out again, little lights popping behind his eyelids. He stifles a groan and shifts on the bed, blinking his eyes open far too wide, trying to take in his surroundings.

 

He's in a small room with cement walls and a single high window that lets in a few rays of light. There's a desk shoved into the corner, a chair beside the low, creaking bed he's stretched out on. He blinks and the room swims for a moment before coming back into focus, and he spots the door on the far wall, cracked open just enough for the voices to filter through.

 

“You're no fun at all, dear cousin. He's just a harmless, stupid, sweet boy.”

 

“Mr. Frye is a threat to our plans, Pearl.” The first voice argues. “He has demonstrated that time and again. His destruction of the factory is only proof-”

 

“Oh, do be quiet Fordsy. He's just a fool boy who was trying to protect a few miserable wretches. I think it's rather sweet, that heroic streak of his.”

 

“He's a miserable wretch himself, Pearl. He's a pathetic, low-life, worthless chem head just like the rest. And, like the rest, he needs to be euthanized-”

 

He can't stifle the groan that escapes him when pain blooms fresh throughout his whole body, wracking his frame with shudders until he feels his bones knock together. He squeezes his eyes shut and wheezes in distress, arching off the bed and gnashing his teeth. He hears the door creak open and a moment later a face appears in his hazy vision, hands going to the pulse in his throat. “-fine, he's delirious. Won't even remember this.”

 

“He shouldn't be delirious; he should have died. The amount of smoke he likely inhaled should have killed him.”

 

“He's a strong boy, cousin. Resilient. A true product of the Wastes.”

 

“He's an animal, and he needs to be put down.”

 

He gasps and whimpers again, trying to curl in on himself when fresh pain lights up every nerve in his body as if he's being electrocuted. He convulses once and collapses against the bed when it passes, close to hyperventilating.

 

“Kill him, Pearl. Before he comes to and makes you regret not slitting his throat.”

 

But he does come to. He feels startling lucidity in that moment and his eyes flash open as he hacks and wheezes and tries to curl on his side, away from the voices. Pearl grabs his shoulders and holds him down though and he goes boneless, knows if he struggles they'll know he's awake, that he's hearing them and he's too weak to fight them off. So he goes limp and whimpers and closes his eyes as she wipes a wet cloth against his itching face and coos at him like he's a sickly child.

 

“There, now, sweet boy. You're alright.”

 

He lets out a heavy, shaky breath and slits his eyes open, staring as blearily as he can into her face while he takes in the man standing behind her. His stomach jolts when he realizes who it is, when he recognizes the face from Greenie's recon photos, but he doesn't react. Instead he whines and shifts on the bed. “Mama...” Uttering those two syllables makes him sick, but he knows they work when Crawford Starrick's expression morphs into disgust, and Pearls turns to amusement. “Hurts...”

 

“Shh, love. I know. Mama's here, she'll take care of you.”

 

He's sick. Everything in him is sick as she says it again. He hates himself, he hates her, he hates Starrick, and he wants to jump up and kill them both but he has no blade, no gun, no knife, and he can barely move, barely see. Lightning jolts through his body again and he jerks on the mattress, making it squeak in protest beneath him, but when he flops back down, Pearl is steadying his arm and sliding a needle into the crook of his arm. Before he can protest or shake her off, he's sliding back under.

 

-

 

_He recognizes the song. Heard it so many times when he was a child, when his father was three bottles in and showing no signs of stopping._

 

_He remembers cowering in his bunk with his pillow over his head, trying to drown it out so he can sleep. He remembers hoping Ethan drinks enough and doesn't go for the Psycho and that when he falls over in his drunken stupor he knocks into the radio to shut it up so Jacob doesn't have to listen to it all night long._

 

“ _Here we are, out of cigarettes, holding hands and yawning; look how late it gets, two sleepy people, by dawn's early light, too much in love to say good-night.”_

 

_Now, as he wanders through the smoking ruins he finds himself in, he hears it, hears Helen Merrill's somber voice echoing eerily through the burned-out buildings, growing closer with each step._

 

“ _Say, here we are, in this cozy chair, picking on a wishbone from the Frigidaire, two sleepy people, with nothing to say, much too much in love to break away.”_

 

_He steps over a corpse without looking in its face and heads deeper, following the crackle of the radio. The longer he walks, the more corpses he has to maneuver around or step over, and he knows. He knows without looking who killed these people, but he can't look at them. He has to find the radio, has to find where the song is coming from so he can silence it._

 

“ _Do you the remember the nights we used to linger in the hall? Papa didn't like you at all, But I was crazy 'bout you, baby!”_

 

_He reaches the end of the street, and finds himself on the edge of a battlefield. The acrid, lingering scent of death—blood, viscera, shit and piss, vomit and decay—mix with that of fire and gunpowder. He feels fatigue drag at his limbs, urging him to lay down despite the carnage and just sleep._

 

_But he can see them at the foot of a mountain of corpses, the radio resting on the broken spine of one of the lost souls._

 

“ _Do you remember the reason why we married in the Fall? To rent this little nest, and get a bit of rest!”_

 

_Ethan Frye holds her close, his harsh face softer than Jacob ever remembering see it and he wishes so badly that this was real. Cecily looks up into her lover's eyes adoringly, her labor-calloused hands light and delicate on his shoulders as the mercenary guides her with slow, swaying steps to the song._

 

“ _Well, here we are, just about the same, Gawky little fellow, dizzy little dame, two sleepy people, by dawn's early light, much too much in love to say good-night.”_

 

_Ethan ducks his head, pressing his lips to Cecily's upturned, smiling mouth as blood blooms across her stomach and runs down the front of her ragged skirt._

 

“ _Good-night!”_

 

_His mother collapses in Ethan's arms, falling dead as the song cuts off. He watches the mercenary go to his knees, cradling her against his chest as Jacob closes the distance, knowing what comes next._

 

_Ethan lifts hateful, rage-filled eyes to his son. “It's your fault.”_

 

_He wants to deny, wants to beg, wants to run away but he just nods._

 

“ _She would have made it, if there weren't two of you.”_

 

_He knows. He knows it’s his fault._

 

“ _We would have been happy together. You ruined everything.”_

 

_He finds himself on his knees suddenly, crouching in the blood-soaked earth as his father stands, lifting Cecily into his arms._

 

“ _You should have been the one to die.”_

 

_-_

 

_Those words echo in his ears as Jacob pushes the door to his father's room open, slowly, silently. He can't risk Ethan hearing. He knows the old man's been at the drink, knows because that song is still playing, over and over again, as he slips into the pitch dark room and shuts the door behind him._

 

_Ethan Frye only snores when he's black-out drunk. He's snoring now._

 

_Good._

 

_Still, Jacob makes no sound as he crosses the room to his father's bed. Even his breathing is muted. Normally he can't help but make a floorboard creak, or mask his own breathing. Evie has always been better at the silent kill, but he's silent now._

 

_He lifts the combat knife as he looms over Ethan's prone form, his gaze falling to his father's thick, exposed neck. He knows where and how deeply to cut, Ethan's made him practice for years, and he knows what to do._

 

_It took him weeks to work up the conviction. The resolve. To steel himself for this grim task._

 

_It's a suicide mission, he knows, but he has nothing left in him except this one desire._

 

_He'd gone farther north, hiding out in a walled-up section of the city, sleeping in doorways and doing what was needed to make caps for food and chems. He no longer felt despair, only a sort of numb acceptance and now, here he was, back in the compound, leaning over the man that made his life into a never ending nightmare._

 

_He's going to kill him. He's going to kill him, like Evie said they should when they were eight and father had broken his nose again._

 

_He's going to cut his father's throat, and then turn himself in. Let the other mercenaries execute him._

 

_His hands shake._

 

_He doesn't want to die. He's afraid of death, but he's accepted it now. He won't escape the mercs, his sister, after he does this. He could sneak away after the deed is done but they'll know._

 

_His whole arm shakes now, and then his entire body shudders._

 

_He needs to do this._

 

_He draws back the knife, and his eyes flick up to Ethan's face._

 

_The old merc stares back at him, and Jacob freezes._

 

_They're locked there for one long, terrifying moment before both explode into action. Jacob swings the knife down, raking the air in front of Ethan's throat as Ethan punches him square in the chest just before the blade can make its mark. Jacob stumbles back, wheezing, and Ethan lunges at him, slapping the knife out of Jacob's hand and backhanding his son a moment later. He knocks Jacob to the floor and climbs on top of him, slapping a hand over the teen's mouth to cover his cries. His other hand curls into a fist and pummels every inch of Jacob he can reach. Jacob shoves at his father with all his might, slapping and clawing and punching, anything he can think of to get his father off him. He bucks and thrashes, trying to dislodge the old merc but Ethan sits his full weight on Jacob's stomach and pushes down on his face with his hand, digging his fingers into Jacob's jaw until it creaks and aches, his other hand still pounding viciously into the teen's body._

 

_Jacob hears the tell-tale rasp of metal on metal as Ethan extends one of the blades on his wrist, and in the same moment searing pain erupts across the right side of his jaw. He howls against the hand crushing the bottom half of his face and tries to jerk away but his father presses the blade deeper into the meat of his cheek, his eyes wild above his son. “You little fucking bastard. You ungrateful shit. After everything I've done for you-” Jacob's vision is going blurry with tears and lack of oxygen. His father hasn't covered his nose but he's hyperventilating and he can't suck in enough air with his mouth covered. He kicks his legs frantically, banging his boots into the floor and slamming his knees into his father's back, anything to get him off, to get away from his blade, his madness. “I should have killed you when you killed your mother.”_

 

_It's a second before Jacob realizes the blade has left its spot against his cheek, and another before he realizes its buried in his side. The teen goes still beneath his father, still digging his fingers into the old man's arm, but he's no longer trying to escape. He stares up at his father, eyes wide in shock as he feels the blade slide free of the wound slowly._

 

_He starts to shake._

 

_Ethan bares his teeth and sheathes his blade, watching his son struggling to breathe, disgust in every line of his craggy face. “I knew you were defective.” He claps his free hand over Jacob's nose, cutting off all air. The teen starts to struggle again, thrashing under his father, reaching up with clawed hands to tear at his face but Ethan only leans back slightly, his gaze cold. “You should have been put down. You were never meant to be born, you're a fucking mistake. You killed your mother, and now she's going to have died in vain.”_

 

_His vision was tunneling, turning grey around the edges as he clawed and shoved at his father's chest and arms, screaming his sister's name over and over again in his mind. His head was pounding, everything was going hazy and dark. He clutched at his father, trying to beg for mercy with his eyes but Ethan responded only by pressing harder as he leaned down and spoke into Jacob's ear. “You should have been the one to die.”_

 

_He swung out once more, one last-ditch effort to free himself, but he missed and only ended up slapping his father's shoulder before his eyes rolled back in his head and his vision went black._

 

_And the next thing he knows, he's breathing again and his father's weight is gone._

 

-

 

He wakes up in increments, aware of his own breathing before anything else. He panics, still caught in the memory, before his eyes flicker open to a bare, dusty room.

 

His father's room had been dark, and reeked of alcohol and sweat. This room smelled like sweat too, but the sour, sickly kind of aroma that came from a person who'd been ill. His eyes feel crusty and heavy, his mouth tastes like rotten meat. His skin burns, his scalp itches. He groans and his voice is raspy and weak, so unlike his normal smooth, charming gruff (he likes to think of it as such, anyway). He groans again and tries to roll onto his side, but his body refuses to obey. Instead he flops uselessly against the mattress and grunts when it causes the fire under his skin to flare.

 

Wheezing out a breath, he lays flat and stares up at the ceiling.

 

How long had he been out, he wonders, watching dust motes swirl in the beam of light from the dirty window. A day? Two? His memory is in bits and pieces, and he wonders how much of it had been fever dreams and hallucinations.

 

He coughs weakly and lifts a shaky hand to try and see if he can gauge the time by the length of his beard.

 

He blinks in confusion when he sees his left forearm is covered in stark white bandages. They aren't damp with sweat, even, which means they must have been changed very recently. More worrying is the fact that his gauntlet is missing, and he feels a fresh wave of panic as he turns his head to the side, eyes scanning the room frantically.

 

He's alone, and he can't see his belongings anywhere.

 

Trying not to feel naked and vulnerable without his blade, he tries again to roll over, managing it with marginally more success than before. By the time he gets onto his side he's panting with exertion and nauseous with the pain.

 

He closes his eyes and breathes through it.

 

When the urge to vomit passes, he opens his eyes and looks down at himself in this new angle.

 

Both arms are covered in varying lengths and thickness of bandages and gauze. The same of his chest and abdomen. He's can't see beyond that, because of the sheet draped across his legs, but he can feel that he's naked under it, and feels a flush of humiliation at that. More, he can feel bandages and gauze wrapped along the length of his legs and his right foot seems to be in a brace of some kind. The wrist brace, though, is gone.

 

So he's been out of it long enough for some of the injuries Collin dealt him to have healed, but not the ones cause by the scene at the factory.

 

His eyes latch onto the bare skin of his belly, of the patches of skin he can see on his arms and chest.

 

Smooth. Atom help him, his skin is smooth in those few places. He's still smooth, he's still smooth-

 

 _I thought..._  His eyes fall to the bandages wrapped around his left hand and he starts to pick at the gauze near his wrist.

 

He stops when he can see the thick, sticky cream slathered over a horrifying burn.

 

_I... I didn't turn. How... how did I not turn?_

 

He can't think on it. He shakes his head, stopping quickly when it makes his head swim, and reaches up to probe tenderly at his aching face. His fingers find more bandages, and very little exposed skin. He has the brief thought that he must look like a mummy and lets out a hysterical little giggle before he composes himself. Slowly, every movement causing fresh pain, he reaches down to grasp the edge of the sheet and drag it higher. He winces as he drags it over his shoulders and slowly, painfully pushes himself up into a sitting position.

 

It takes him another five minutes of sitting there, swearing, and trying not to retch before he gains his shaky footing, using the desk to support himself until he reaches the wall.  He holds the sheet closed around his naked body and walks along it, limping heavily. When he reaches it, he fumbles with the door for a moment before it opens for him.

 

The guard lounging against the opposite wall nearly falls over in his surprise at seeing the banged-up man standing there. “Jay-sus, you're up?”

 

The merc blinks at him stupidly for a moment, slouching against the door frame as the words take far too long to process in his sluggish mind. “I...” He frowns and shakes his head, trying to push himself more upright. His hand slips off the frame and he pitches forward. He feels himself crash into something solid before his world goes dark and he's pitched back into his nightmares.

 

-

 

_He doesn't understand what just happened, only that he can breathe again and he sucks in great, gasping gulps of air. He hears the sounds of fighting somewhere behind him but between his desperate struggle to breathe and the weeping wound in his side he doesn't have enough left in him to figure out what's happening. He hears grunts, cursing, vitriol spat back and forth in between the sounds of flesh being struck. There's a tremendous crash and Jacob finally rolls over, clutching his side._

 

_He's always been fairly matched to somewhat superior to his sister in hand to hand, mainly due to his size and brute strength (though the use of Psycho doesn't hurt either), but he's never seen her fight with the level of barbaric violence she displays as she beats their father with a baton, smashing it against him over and over until it snaps in half. Then she jumps on Ethan Frye with fists and claws and he falls to the floor, scrambling backwards as she bashes him repeatedly on the neck and face. He lifts up an arm to ward off the attack, crawling frantically backwards to escape but she follows with her boots now, putting every ounce of rage and hatred she has suffered him over the years into her blows until he falls back with a grunt and slumps to the ground, clutching his face._

 

_When she finally stops, she looks feral. Her normally carefully coiffed hair is falling in disarray around her face, her chest is heaving with strained breath, her knuckles are torn and bleeding and her clothes are splattered with yet more blood, though most of it belongs to their father._

 

“ _If you EVER-” She shouts, kicking him viciously in the back. “ **Ever**  lay hands on him again, I'll kill you, old man.”_

 

_Jacob sobs, curling in on himself and shaking his head, silently pleading with her to just end the bastard, to kill him._

 

_Instead she lets the old man gain his shaky footing, one arm wrapped around his chest as he pushes to his full height, not as impressive or intimidating now that his children are nearly level with him. “You-”_

 

_Evie reaches out and strikes him, lightning quick, then grabs him by the shoulder and knees him in the balls with as much force as she can muster. Ethan lets out a great wuff of air and collapses back to his knees, folding over as he cups his groin. Evie leans down again, grabbing his chin to force him into looking up at her. “If you come after him again, I will kill you. I'll do it in front of everyone. If you come after me, you better be damn sure you can take me you old bastard.”_

 

_Ethan sneers up at her, some scathing remark on his tongue, undoubtedly, but he clenches his teeth, shuts his eyes, and nods once._

 

_Evie drops his chin and hurries to her brother's side, sliding an arm around his shoulders. He pushes at her weakly, shaking his head and trying to speak through his gasping sobs. He has to tell, needs to tell her that she can't save him, that she's brought down Ethan's wrath on both their heads now, but she ignores him, doesn't even snap at him for trying to push her away as she hauls him to his feet and out of the small, dark room, her eyes glowing with barely-restrained fury as they walk._

 

_-_

 

“Good morning, Pet.”

 

Jacob flinches, his head pounding in response as he blinks his eyes open again. He looks around, notices he's back in the little room. The light coming in through the window hasn't changed, but he's no longer alone in the room. The man from the hallway is standing there, and sitting next to the bed is-

 

“Pearl-” He coughs, his hand snapping up to his mouth to cover his hacking and he feels her long, nimble fingers card through his hair.

 

He tries not to feel sick about it.

 

“There, there, easy now love. You've had a trying few weeks.”

 

Shock punches through him at that and he jerks his head up to look at her, regretting it immediately as it makes his vision grey and makes his vertebrae pop painfully. “Few weeks?” He rasps.

 

She nods, and presses her fingers to his scalp to urge him back down to the pillow, waves the hovering guard away with her free hand. “I was so worried when my men brought you to me, Pet. You were steps away from Death's door; I wasn't sure we'd be able to bring you back.” He groans and closes his eyes, wishing dearly for her to remove her hand. He doesn't want her to touch him, doesn't want to hear her voice.

 

_She was one of Starrick's. Ned was right._

 

The painful thought punches through him and he groans, but she takes it as a sign of physical pain.

 

_I am a fucking fool..._

 

She helps him sit up and sip at some water, and he lets her only because he's so desperately thirsty.

 

_She's Starrick's. She's Starrick's, and I killed all those people for her._

 

She coos and tuts and fusses with him, playing the nurturing recovery nurse and he lets her, cuddling into her side, smiling weakly at her, accepting all her tender help. Refusing to look at himself, to see what he knows is hiding beneath the bandages wrapped thick and tight around his body. Refuses to look even when Pearl sends in one of her doctors to change his dressings and reapply the burn salve.

 

_I fucking betrayed Ned for her._

 

That's the thought that helps him keep the charade going over the next few days. More than the thought of his own swift death if she finds out he was lucid for her conversation with Starrick, more than the thought of never making up with Evie.

 

It's the thought of the hurt on Ned's face when the merc shoved everything back in his face that keeps him from outing himself before he gains his strength back.

 

It's the thought of days spent lazing around Ned's office, bantering with the older man, of how... honestly touched he'd felt when Ned had shown him his collection of baseball memorabilia, of late nights and old whiskey, of contracts to guard caravans, and others to eliminate the competition.

 

He thinks back to an old discussion about trains, and to the long trip back from Dunwich when Ned had trusted him enough to be comforted by his presence after a nightmare.

 

Now, all lost to him now 'cause he'd been blinded by pride and lust.

 

He hates himself.

 

He knows he'll never make it up to Ned. Wonders if he should even try; if Ned would want him to.

 

Probably not. He's worth less than dog shit and while he knows Ned is no paragon of virtue, he's not an absolute fucking monster like the merc. And he doesn't want to put that hurt, betrayed look on Ned's face again. 

 

He grits his teeth and focuses on keeping up appearances, looking at Pearl with adoration and devotion in his eyes while she dotes on him.

 

He struggles not to vomit when she kisses him, her tongue sliding into his mouth without invitation.

 

When she puts her hands on him, telling him he needs to exercise, he chuckles and runs his hands along her body, lets her divest him of the loose pants he's wearing.

 

Though he hates himself for it, he thinks of Ned to keep himself from breaking her neck then and there.

 

He bides his time, gathers his strength, buries his lingering, all-consuming sickness and sinks as deeply as he can into the mindset of Pearl's Boy.

 

-

 

“Hmm, as fun as it's been to play mommy-” He tries not to cringe as he pulls on his boots, “-I must say, it's good to see my Pet on his feet again.”

 

He flashes a toothy grin over his shoulder at her, and finishes lacing up his boot. He's not wearing a brace anymore, the sprain mostly healed, but he does have it wrapped in thick cloth to keep the joint from bending out of shape too much. “It's about damn time, too. Thought I was gonna get all fat and soft lyin' in bed all this time.”

 

Pearl chortles at that and runs a hand up his spine, dragging over the gauze until she meets sun-tanned skin. “Not with as often as I've been in it with you. Aren't you going to take these off yet, and look? They aren't that bad, Pet.” He blanches, and she tuts at him, sitting up to begin fiddling with the edge of the wrapping on his chest. “Not even the ones on your face. How you managed to live, let alone avoid a full-body burn-”

 

He takes her hands gently in his and pries them off, grabbing up his shirt and shrugging into it before she can touch him again. She doesn't understand why he doesn't want to see, why he isn't more interested. Why the thought of the scars makes him weak at the knees instead of proud of his strength and endurance.

 

Doesn't understand why he can't bear anyone to touch his tight, itchy skin.

 

It's not just the burns. There's nerve damage, too. Probably permanent. In fact, most likely permanent unless he gets himself a fucking miracle. He can almost handle that better than the scaring. At least with deadened nerves, he'll have a higher pain tolerance. Now if only the radiation in the undistilled Jet had melted his brain too, it'd be like he was on a permanent Psycho trip.

 

He shudders and stretches, reaching out to pick up his gauntlet.

 

“ _I know how fond you are of it.” Pearl tells him, playing with the mechanism that frees the blade, a coy little smile on her face that Jacob wants to tear off. “I thought of having some of my boys study it for reproduction-” The merc feels his metaphorical hackles raise, while he just smiles tiredly at the woman. “But, I couldn't bring myself to do it without your permission, Pet.”_

 

He tries not to sigh in relief when he straps it on over the bandages and feel too much like he's just reattached one of his limbs and damned himself at the same time. He flexes, cocks his wrist so the blade pops out, then he straightens his wrist again to have it slide back into place. Still in working order, meaning she hadn't sabotaged it.

 

She beckons him closer, licking her lips as she eyes the blade.

 

He smirks and obeys, sauntering as he closes the distance between them to brace his hands on the armrests of the chair she's in and loom over her. The merc ducks his head, presses his lips firmly to hers, nipping her bottom lip. She gives out a pleased gasp and slides her hands up his chest.

 

He lifts his left hand from the arm rest and slides it up her bicep.

 

The merc makes a motion as if to cup her face, and sends his blade through the side of her throat instead.

 

Pearl coughs and gags, and blood bursts into his mouth. He spits it off to the side and leans back, staring down into her shocked face with exhaustion on his own.  _He's so tired._ “Starrick will follow. Soon.”

 

He leaves her choking on her own blood and heads out into the hall, angry and frustrated and too fucking tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gross, right?
> 
> Where is Jacob going? How is he going to repair everything he's broken? What will happen when he sees Ned in the next chapter? How will Collin and Jacob react to seeing each other again? Where is Evie, and how will she feel when she finds out her brother is still alive?
> 
> Who knoooooows?
> 
> RebornFromSeas knows because they are such an incredible beta and friend and none of this would be continuing without the support they've given me.
> 
> Edit: If it's unclear, Jacob has not turned into a ghoul. However, he has suffered severe radiation burns and nerve damage. Either the next chapter or the one after that will have a full explanation as to the hows and whys.


End file.
